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IN HIS STEPS: 



A BOOK 



FOR YOUNG CHRISTIANS SETTING OUT 
TO FOLLOW CHRIST. 



J. R. MILLER, 

Author of " Week-Day Religion," " Home-Making," etc. 



II r 



W« 



PHILADELPHIA : 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



1 l«* 



COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 



ALL EIGHTS RESERVED. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Slereolypers and fflectrotypers, Philada. 



TO THE 



YOUNG CHRISTIANS 



THREE CONGREGATIONS WHICH HE HAS BEEN PERMITTED 
TO SERVE AS PASTOR— 

THE BETHANY CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, 

THE BROADWAY CHURCH, ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS, 

AND 

THE HOLLOND MEMORIAL CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA- 

THIS LITTLE BOOK 

Is Affectionately Dedicated 

BY THEIR 

FAITHFUL FRIEND. 



WHY THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN. 



Many young Christians, as they begin their 
new life, are perplexed to know what they should 
do, what their new duties are, what it is to live a 
Christian life, where and how to get the help they 
need to meet their new responsibilities. This little 
book has been prepared in the hope that to some 
of this class it may prove helpful. The writer 
has no other desire so strong as that he may in 
these plain, simple chapters be permitted to " lend 
a hand" to some younger Christians who desire 
to reach the best possible things in their Chris- 
tian life, but who do not know just how to begin 
nor what to strive to be and to do. 

There are many pastors who desire a little book 
suitable to put into the hands of those who enter 
the Church by public confession. There are 



6 WHY THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN. 

Sabbath-school teachers, also, who desire a book 
that they can give to the young Christians in 
their classes to guide their early steps. 

The writer is not without the hope that this 
book may prove suitable and useful for these 
purposes; so it is sent out with the prayer that 
the Master may use it to help some of his fol- 
lowers to live more earnestly, beautifully and 
usefully. J. R. M. 

Philadelphia. 



CONTENTS. 



i. 

PAGE 

Beginning Well : Introductory 9 



II. 
The Christian Life : The Ideal 16 

III. 
Living for God : Consecration 25 

IV. 
Meeting Temptation: Conflict 35 

V. 
Working for Christ : Service .......... 45 

VI. 

Helps: Personal Prayer 56 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

VII. 

PAGE 

Helps: The Bible 69 

VIII. 
Helps: The Church and its Services 83 

IX. 

Growing in One's Place: Providence 101 

X. 

Preparation for Trial : Forecast 110 



IN HIS STEPS. 



BEGINNING WELL: INTRODUCTORY. 

TT is impossible to exaggerate the importance of 
a good beginning in any course of life. Many 
people spend the latter half of their years in cor- 
recting the errors of the earlier half, and by the 
time they are ready to live the end has come. A 
good beginning at once turns all the energies into 
the right channels. No golden years need then be 
wasted in unlearning false lessons, in revising un- 
wise or impracticable plans or in retracing one's 
steps. Many a career of brilliant possibilities is 
marred by a wrong beginning. There are mis- 
takes of early life which men never get over. 
A bad foundation has caused the wreck of many 
a noble building. Inadequate preparation for a 
business or a calling leads, at the best, to impaired 



10 IN HIS STEPS. 

success, and most frequently results, in the end, in 
utter failure. 

These principles apply in Christian life. It is 
of the utmost importance that we start well. Many 
Christians walk in doubt and shadow all their days, 
never entering into rich joy and peace because at the 
beginning they failed to understand or to realize the 
blessedness of the privileges to which, as children 
of God, they are entitled. Many others never 
attain anything noble and beautiful in Christian 
life and character because at the beginning they 
did not wholly disentangle themselves from their 
old life and fully consecrate themselves to Christ. 
A good beginning, therefore, involves two things 
— clearness and definiteness of aim, with intelligent 
views of the nature and meaning of the Christian 
life; and completeness of consecration. 

Many men fail in life because they have no 
settled purpose, no well-defined plan. They have 
no goal set before them which with all their ener- 
gies they strive to reach. There is in their mind 
no clear and distinct idea toward which they 
struggle. They merely drift on the current, and 
are borne by it whithersoever it flows. They are 
not masters in life, but poor slaves. They conquer 



BEGINNING WELL, 11 

nothing, but are the mere creatures of circum- 
stance. Such lives, however, are unworthy of 
intelligent beings endowed with immortal powers, 
and they never reach any high degree of nobleness 
or success. 

No sculptor touches the marble until he has in 
his mind a definite conception of his work as it 
will appear when it has been finished, He sees 
a vision before him of a very lovely form, and 
then sets to w r ork to fashion the vision in the 
stone. No builder begins to erect a house until 
a complete plan embracing every detail has been 
adopted. Before he strikes a stroke he knows 
precisely what the finished structure will be. No 
one would cut into a web of rich and costly cloth 
until he had before him the pattern of the garment 
he would make. In all work on material things 
men have definite aims before they begin their 
work, and know precisely what they intend to 
produce. 

But in life itself and living, in character-build- 
ing, in destiny-shaping, many fail to exercise such 
wisdom. Multitudes never give one earnest thought 
to such questions as these : " What is my life? For 
what purpose is it entrusted to me ? What ought I 



12 IN HIS STEPS. 

to do with it? What should be the great aim 
of my existence ? What should I strive to be and 
to do ?" Thousands live aimlessly, having no true 
sense of the responsibility of living, never forming 
an earnest, resolute purpose to rise to any noble 
height or to achieve any worthy thing. An im- 
mortal life should have its aim ever shining before 
it bright and clear as a star in the heavens. To 
grow up as a plant — without thought or purpose 
—is well enough for a plant, and God clothes it 
and shapes it into marvelous beauty; but men 
with undying souls and measureless possibilities 
should have a purpose worthy of their immor- 
tality, and should strive with heroic energy to 
attain it. 

No one begins well in life who has not settled 
in his own mind what, by God's help, he will 
strive to do with his life. 

In entering the Christian life there should be a 
clear aim. We should know definitely what this 
new life is which we have now to live. With but 
vague ideas of the meaning of a Christian life — its 
ideal, its requirements, its privileges, the duties 
which belong to it — no one can begin well. All 
is vague and misty, and while it is so we cannot 



BEGINNING WELL. 13 

put any purpose or energy into our life. We 
need to understand the new relations into which 
we come as children of God, in order that we 
may realize the privileges of our position. We 
need to have a clear conception of the final aim 
of all Christian attainment and aspiration, in order 
that we may strive toward it. We need to know 
what is required of a Christian toward his God 
and toward his fellow-men, in order that we may 
faithfully and intelligently perform all our duties. 
We need to know the conditions of Christian life 
— its needs, its dangers — in order that we may 
avail ourselves of the necessary helps provided 
for us. Thus a clear and intelligent aim is es- 
sential in beginning well as a Christian. 

" Chisel in hand stood a sculptor-boy 
With his marble block before him, 

And his face lit up with a smile of joy- 
As an angel-dream passed o'er him. 

He carved the dream on that shapeless stone 
With many a sharp incision ; 

With heaven's own light the sculpture shone : 
He had caught that angel* vision. 

" Sculptors of life are we as we stand, 
With our souls uncarved before us, 



14 IN HIS STEPS. 

Waiting the hour when, at God's command, 

Our life-dream shall pass o'er us. 
If we carve it then on the yielding stone 

With many a sharp incision, 
Its heavenly beauty shall be our own ; 

Our lives, that angel-vision." 

Besides the clear aim, the other essential thing in 
beginning well is the devotion and consecration of 
ourselves to the new life we have chosen. A good 
ideal is not enough. One may aim an arrow with 
perfect accuracy , but the bow must also be drawn 
and the cord let fly if the arrow is to reach the 
mark. A vision in the brain is not enough for 
the sculptor : he must hew and chisel the marble 
into the form of his vision. The architect's plan 
is only a picture, and there must be toil and cost 
until the building stands complete in its noble 
beauty. 

A good aim is not all of a Christian life. It 
is nothing more than an empty dream unless it 
be wrought out in Godlike character and Christ- 
like ministry. Every earnest Christian looks much 
at the glorious Master, and, as he looks, visions of 
wondrous beauty fill his soul — glimpses of the 
loveliness of Christ ; and he must then seek 



BEGINNING WELL. 15 

with patient yet intense purpose to reproduce 
these heavenly visions in his own life, 

Many people have sublimest aspirations and 
wishes — and even form their aspirations and wishes 
into intentions and resolves — who yet never take a 
step toward realizing them. Mere knowing what 
it is to be a Christian makes no one a Christian ; 
many perish with the glorious ideal shining full 
and clear before their eyes. Merely seeing the 
beauty of Christ, as it is held before us for our 
copying, will never fashion us into that beauty. 
Our knowledge must be wrought into life. The 
image our souls see must be fashioned into char- 
acter. Our good intentions must take form in 
daily deeds. Knowing God's will, we must do 
it with willing heart and diligent hand. 

" Make my mortal dreams come true 
With the work I fain would do ; 
Clothe with life the weak intent : 
Let me be the thing I meant ; 
Let me find in thy employ 
Peace that dearer is than joy ; 
Out of self to love be led, 
And to heaven acclimated, 
Until all things sweet and good 
Seem my natural habitude." 



II. 

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE: THE IDEAL. 

• "Far better in its place the lowliest bird 

Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song 
Than that a seraph strayed should take the word 
And sing his glory wrong." 

TTTHAT is it to be a Christian ? What is that 
change which, wrought in a natural man, 
makes him a Christian man ? What are a Chris- 
tian's new relations to God and to his fellow-men ? 
What is Christian character? How should a 
Christian live? What is the pattern on which 
his life should be fashioned ? If we would make 
our Christian lives what they ought to be, we 
must find plain, clear answers to these questions. 
A Christian is one who believes on Christ. He 
has entrusted his whole life, with its sin, its guilt, 
its ruin, its need, its security for eternity, its re- 
demption, cleansing and transformation, to the 
hands of the mighty Saviour, the strong Son of God. 

16 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 17 

A Christian is therefore a saved one, a redeemed one 
— saved, redeemed, by Christ. He is no longer 
guilty and condemned : he is acquitted, justified, 
restored to such relations before God that he is as 
if he had never sinned, so fully are his sins put 
away. He is God's lost and wandering child 
brought home, received, reconciled, restored to all 
a child's privileges. 

But this is not all ; it is not merely a change of 
relations. Those who believe on Christ are born 
again, the Scripture says— born from above, born 
of God ; that is, there is a new, a divine, life in 
the regenerated soul. Christ speaks of it as a 
well of water in the believer springing up into 
everlasting life. The result is shown in new 
affections, new desires, new hopes, new aims. 
Forgiveness of sins is not enough. A man's lies 
and dishonesties may be forgiven ; but if that is 
all, he is still a liar and dishonest. God's for- 
giveness regenerates. A Christian life is really 
the setting up of the kingdom of God in a human 
heart. 

A child was troubled at the thought that heaven 
was so far away, and was perplexed to know how 
he could ever get up to that bright home. His 



18 IN HIS STEPS. 

mother explained to him that heaven must first 
come down to him — must first enter his heart. 
A Christian is one into whose heart the spirit of 
heaven has entered. The new life is like that 
they live in heaven. We are taught to pray, 
" Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." 
The one place in all the earth in which it most 
concerns each Christian to see that God's will 
is done as it is in heaven is in his own indi- 
vidual heart. 

If we are truly born again, the life of heaven 
has really begun within us. It may be very feeble 
in its beginning, like one little seed only, planted 
in a garden ; but the one seed is from heaven, and 
the new life in us has truly begun. " That which 
is born of the Spirit," said the Master, "is spir- 
it." It is the life of the Spirit in a human soul. 
Paul put this truth in very striking way when 
he said, " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
me." Our Lord said a Christian is " a branch " 
of the true Vine. This suggests what Christian 
life and character should be before the world. 
Every true Christian is a new incarnation. Christ 
showed the world in his own person the life of the 
invisible God. No human eye ever saw God in 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 19 

his glory; no one could ever have seen him had 
not Christ come down and in a plain, simple and 
real human life which men could see and under- 
stand lived out the divine life which in its glory 
men could neither see nor understand. He inter- 
preted the invisible things of God in act and 
phrase which the common people could read. 
He said, when he was asked about God, "Look 
at me and see God. I and my Father are one. 
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 

In like manner, in his own small measure, every 
one truly a Christian is an incarnation of God, 
and should be able in humility to say, " Look at 
me, and you will see a dim but faithful represen- 
tation of God." This puts a very solemn responsi- 
bility on every Christian. He represents God in 
this world, and is to live in such a way that from 
his life men shall learn the truth about God. If 
Christ lives in us, men must see Christ in our faces 
and hear him in our words and learn of him in 
our acts. 

The ideal of Christian life is therefore the like- 
ness of Christ. That is the pattern shown in the 
mount after which we are to strive to fashion our 
life. 



20 IN HIS STEPS. 

As we study Christ in the Gospels there rises up 
before us the vision of his matchless beauty. We 
go over the chapters, and we find one fragment 
of his loveliness here and another there; and as 
we read the story through to the end beauty after 
beauty appears, until at length we see a full vision 
of the Christ which, though imperfect by reason 
of the imperfectness of our nature, yet truly rep- 
resents to us the image of our blessed Redeemer. 
This is the pattern we are to follow in fashion- 
ing our lives. This is the vision we are to seek to 
carve into reality in our own character. All acts 
we are to bring to the example of Christ, testing 
each one by that infallible standard. The gospel 
should be studied by the young Christian as a 
builder studies the architect's drawings, that every 
minutest detail may be exactly reproduced so far as 
in a faulty and sinful human life the character and 
conduct of the faultless and sinless Jesus can be re- 
produced. The perfect Pattern is ever to be held 
before us for imitation, and as we look at it glow- 
ing in all its marvelous beauty, yet far above us 
and beyond our present reach, we are to comfort 
ourselves and inspire our hearts to the noblest 
efforts and highest attainments by the thought, 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 21 

" That is what some time I am going to be." 
And however slow may be our progress toward 
that perfect ideal ; however sore the struggles with 
weakness and sin ; however often we fail, — we are 
never to lose sight of the distant goal nor cease 
to strive and press toward the mark. Some day, 
if we are faithful to the end and faint not, we 
shall emerge out of all failure and struggle, and, 
seeing Jesus as he is, shall be fully transformed 
into his blessed image. 

Such is the aim of the Christian life. "We 
shall be like Him " — that is the final destiny of 
every redeemed life. This should be inspiration 
enough to arouse in the dullest soul every sluggish 
hope and every slumbering energy, and to impel to 
the highest effort and the most heroic struggle. 
This assurance should perpetually shine like a 
bright star beyond the fields of toil and battle, 
forbidding discouragement in any temporary fail- 
ure or defeat and cheering all faintness and weari- 
ness into buoyant strength and enthusiasm. 

This goal of blessedness is not to be reached at 
one bound : it is the work of long and painful 
years, and the progress is slow and the trans- 
formation gradual and almost imperceptible. 



22 IN HIS STEPS. 

"Heaven is not gained by a single bound, 
But we build the ladder by which we rise 
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, 
And we mount to its summit round by round." 

It will help us, in striving after the perfected 
beauty, to remember that we can best attain it by 
carving each moment's line with care. God gives 
us life by days and hours, not by months and 
years. The way to have his purpose for us ful- 
filled in us is to fill each minute with simple 
faithfulness. Doing God's will for each moment 
not only lights the path for the next, but pre- 
pares us for its responsibility. Charles Kingsley 
said, " Do to-day's duty, fight to-day's temptation, 
and do not weaken or distract yourself by looking 
forward to things which you cannot see, and could 
not understand if you saw them." 

Character is a mosaic in which each day has its 
little stone to set ; we need but to look well to the 
days as they come, and to print on each its record of 
beauty, and the whole will be beautiful in the end. 
This living simply by the day is one of the royal 
secrets of a beautiful life which every young Chris- 
tian should learn. The following lines by Susan 
Coolidge are full of suggestions on this point: 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 23 

"Every day is a fresh beginning, 

Every morn is the world made new : 
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning, 
Here is a beautiful hope for you — 
A hope for me, and a hope for you. 

"All the past things are past and over; 

The tasks are done and the tears are shed: 
Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover; 
Yesterday's wounds, which smarted and bled, 
Are healed with the healing which night has shed. 

"Yesterday now is a part of Forever- 
Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight, 
With glad days and sad days and bad days which never 
Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight, 
Their fullness of sunshine or sorrowful night. 

"Let them go, since we cannot relive them — 
Cannot undo and cannot atone ; 
God in his mercy receive, forgive them! 
Only the new days are our own: 
To-day is ours, and to-day alone. 

"Here are the skies all burnished brightly, 
Here is the spent earth all reborn, 
Here are the tired limbs springing lightly 
To face the sun and share with the mora 
In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn. 



24 IN HIS STEPS. 

u Every day is a fresh beginning; 

Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain, 
And, spite of old sorrow, and older sinning, 
And puzzles forecasted, and possible pain, 
Take heart with the day, and begin again." 

A life thus lived, each day made beautiful with 
the beauty of holiness and of usefulness, will in 
the end give a record of duty well done, of work 
completed, of blessings left" behind at each step, 
and a character transfigured by the indwelling 
divine Spirit and the outworking of love until it 
shines in the full likeness of Christ himself. 



III. 

LIVING FOR GOD : CONSECRATION. 

TT is not enough to cut loose from the old life : 
■ the young Christian must enter the new life. 
Leaving the service of one master, he must enlist 
in that of another. Withdrawing his heart's affec- 
tions from one class of objects, he must fix them 
upon another class. Ceasing to do evil, he must 
also learn to do well. No longer a servant of sin, 
he must become a servant of righteousness. Mere 
repentance is not enough ; giving up one's wicked 
ways is but half of conversion : there must also be 
a devotement of the life to Christ. The heart can- 
not be left empty. 

" When St. Boniface had hewn down the sacred 
oak worshiped by the savages in the tangled forests 
of Germany, he did not stop with destroying it, 
but when it was felled built out of its fallen and 
splintered fragments the chapel of St. Peter, and 
in the room of the worship of Thor the Thunderer 

25 



26 IN HIS STEPS. 

left the worship of Christ the Crucified. c To re- 
place is to conquer;' and the theology of the for- 
ests fled back abashed before the theology of the 
cross." When we break with the world, we must 
straightway bow before Christ; indeed, we can 
be freed from the dominion of the old master only 
by the coming into our hearts of the new. Christ 
must be Deliverer as well as Lord. The only way 
we can turn from sin is by turning to Christ. He 
then becomes, first, Deliverer and Saviour; after- 
ward, King and Lord. As such he must be 
accepted, and the whole allegiance of the life 
should instantly be transferred to him. This sur- 
render should be complete and entire. Every 
power of body and soul should be carried over 
into the service of the new master, and every 
energy dedicated to him. 

This is conversion; it is going over to Christ 
fully, wholly, freely and for ever. It is not merely 
attaching ourselves to the Church : it is attaching 
ourselves to Christ. It is not merely entering upon 
a good moral life — pure, honest, clean ; not merely 
engaging in active Christian work : it is the accept- 
ance of Christ, first as a personal Saviour, then as 
a personal Lord. It is coming to Christ himself, 



LIVING FOR GOD. 27 

believing on him, following him, loving him, obey- 
ing him. 

It is important that the young Christian shall 
understand this, and that his devotion to his Lord 
shall be real and complete. No man can serve two 
masters. It will not do to try a divided allegiance. 
True consecration carries all over to Christ. 

For one thing, this means holiness: "Ye are 
not your own, for ye are bought with a price; 
therefore glorify God." The life that belongs to 
Christ must be kept from sin. The hands that 
are held up in prayer and that take the sacramental 
emblems must not touch any unclean thing. The 
lips that speak to God and sing his praise and pro- 
nounce his name must not be stained by sinful or 
bitter words. The heart which is the dwelling- 
place of the Holy Ghost must not open to any 
thought or affection that would defile God's temple. 
The feet that Christ's pierced hands have washed 
must not walk in any of sin's unhallowed paths. 
A consecrated life must be holy. 

Unholiness is very subtle. It creeps in when 
we are not aware. It begins in the heart. At 
first it is but a thought, or a moment's imagining, 
or a passing emotion, or a desire. Hence the heart 



28 IN HIS STEPS. 

should be kept with unremitting diligence. Only 
pure and good thoughts should be entertained. It 
is in the thoughts that all life begins. All acts are 
thoughts first. Our thoughts build up our char- 
acter as the coral -insects build up the great reefs. 
The Bible tells us that as a man thinketh in his 
heart so is he. Some one has written : " Beautiful 
thoughts make a beautiful soul, and a beautiful soul 
makes a beautiful face/' If we are to keep our- 
selves unspotted from the world as we pass through 
its foul streets, we must see to it that no unholy- 
thing is for a moment tolerated in our hearts. 
A crime stains one's name before the world, but 
a sinful thought or wish stains the soul in God's 
eyes and grieves the divine Spirit within us. 

But the keeping of the life unspotted is not the 
whole of living for God : there must be service 
also. When young Christians are received into 
the Church, they profess to dedicate themselves 
and all they have — time, talents, money, every 
power, body, soul and spirit — to the service of 
Christ for ever. This means that they will no 
longer claim mastership over themselves ; that hence- 
forth they are Christ's servants ; that they will live 
for Christ only each day; that they will listen 



LIVING FOE GOB. 29 

at each step for his command and promptly obey 
it; that they will devote all their possessions to 
him, using them for him and at his bidding ; and 
that they will employ their talents and influence to 
advance his kingdom. 

Here is the point at which, for many young 
Christians, perplexity begins. They are sincere 
and earnest in their desire to live for Christ and 
to make their consecration sincere and full, yet 
they do not know how to do it. It seems to them, 
in the warm glow of their first love, that they are 
living for Christ only while engaged in religious 
exercises— praying, singing praise, reading the 
Bible, visiting the sick or speaking to others 
about their souls. Ordinary secular duties seem 
to them out of harmony with the spirit of con- 
secration. 

This is a great mistake. Daily duty in the 
common relations of life is as much part of a 
true consecration as are praying and reading the 
Bible and attending church-services. If the heart 
be given to Christ, the whole life is holy. We do 
not live two lives — one religious and one secular- 
after we become Christians. We are always to do 
God's will, and it is as much his will that we 



30 JN HIS STEPS. 

should be diligent in business as that we should 
be fervent in spirit. 

"The trivial round, the common task, 
Would furnish all we ought to ask — 
Koom to deny ourselves, a road 
To bring us daily nearer God." 

When young persons yet in school become Chris- 
tians, they are not to drop their secular studies and 
read the Bible all the time : they are to go on with 
their lessons— only with new motives, for Christ 
now — faithfully using every moment, diligently 
striving to get the greatest possible benefit and im- 
provement from their education to fit them for the 
life and work before them. When religion makes 
a pupil less diligent, less studious, less earnest, 
there is something wrong. When a young man 
in a trade or business gives himself to Christ, 
unless his occupation is sinful or he is called to 
the ministry of the gospel, he is to continue in it, 
carrying his Christian principles into it and doing 
business now for Christ. 

So in all cases. Secular work is not unholy. All 
duty is sacred in God's sight. The hands of Jesus 
swung the axe and pushed the plane, and he pleased 



LIVING FOR GOD. 31 

the Father then just as well as when he was praying 
and reading the Scriptures. Paul's hands sewed upon 
tents, and he was just as near to God then as when 
he was preaching in the synagogue. Of course the 
motive of life is changed when we truly belong to 
Christ. Self conies down from the throne and we 
do everything for the Master : " Whether ye eat or 
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of 
God." We train our powers to greater efficiency 
that we may be more useful in his work. We 
live carefully that in the smallest things we may 
honor him. We seek increased influence that we 
may do more to bless the world and advance the 
glory of Christ's name. For the world is read- 
ing our lives, and it reads no other Bible ; and we 
must make sure that our daily actions spell out 
a true gospel, so that no one who sees us may 
ever get a wrong thought of Christ or a wrong 
sense of his religion from us. None of us un- 
derstand one half the blessing to others and 
the influence for religion there is in simply being 
good. We struggle to be active and to do many 
things. We run everywhere to work for Christ. 
We think that unless we are always doing some- 
thing, or talking to somebody, or holding a meet- 



32 IN HIS STEPS. 

ing somewhere, or visiting the poor or the sick, 
we are not useful. We make a mistake. There 
is no other such power for real usefulness and 
helpfulness, no other such glory for God, as in 
simple goodness. Holy life itself is highest service. 

Hence there should be in every young Christian 
the most conscientious watchfulness over the early 
growths of spirituality in his own heart. These 
growths are tender and easily destroyed, like the 
young plants which the gardener keeps in his 
conservatory through the winter and cool spring 
days. The whole matter of heart-culture requires 
the utmost diligence. All life, business and social 
as well as religious, must be made to contribute to 
it. We should form our friendships and choose 
our amusements with reference to their effect on 
our heart-life. Some one has given this true test, 
whose application should be wide as life itself: 
" Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the ten- 
derness of your conscience, obscures your view of 
God or takes off the relish of spiritual things — in 
short, whatever increases the authority of your 
body over your mind — that is sin to you, how- 
ever innocent it may be in itself." 

A life so regulated, so watched, so ruled by con- 



LIVING FOR GOD. 33 

science and by the word and Spirit of God, will 
grow into a living power of real holiness the 
value of whose ministry will be incalculable in 
its silent pervasive influence. 

"Birds, by being glad, their Maker bless; 
By simply shining, sun and star ; 
And we, whose law is love, serve less 
By what we do than what we are." 

There is still another part of all true consecra- 
tion : besides living a pure and good life, and 
besides doing all our daily work for Christ, we 
should also embrace every opportunity of doing 
good to others in Christ's name and for his sake. 
There are needy and suffering ones all about us, 
and we are to do Christ's errands to these, per- 
forming for them the ministries of kindness and 
mercy which he would render if he were here in 
person. There are weak and fainting ones about 
us who find life hard and who need sympathy 
and help. To all these we have errands of love : we 
should share their burdens and put strong sustain- 
ing arms about them in their weakness. A life for 
Christ must always be a life of love, of usefulness 
and of helpfulness. No true Christian liyes for 



34 IN HIS STEPS. 

himself. We have our model in Him who came 
" not to be ministered unto, but to minister. " We 
need not wait for great opportunities : these come 
but rarely ; the common days are full of oppor- 
tunities for little kindnesses and thoughtfulnesses 
and unselfishnesses, and in order to write bright 
records for ourselves we have only to seize these 
and put out our hands to render the ministries to 
which God thus invites and calls us. Doing the 
thing that Christ himself would do if he were 
just in our place — that is the rule for Christian 
living. 

Thus consecration becomes very real. It is just 
living for God, day by day, hour by hour. It is 
nothing strained or unnatural ; it does not wrench 
us out of our place nor disturb our relationships 
unless they are sinful : it is the simple living out 
in true devotion to Christ, in unquestioning obedi- 
ence and in quiet faithfulness, the life he gives, 
in whatever sphere our lot may be cast. 



IV. 

MEETING TEMPTATION: CONFLICT. 

fTIHE experience of temptation is universal. Every 
life must grow up amid unfriendly and oppos- 
ing influences — some of them subtle and insidious 
like miasma in the air, some of them fierce and 
wild like the blast of storm or the rush of battle. 
Much is said in exhortation about the solemn 
nature of death; yet really it is not half so 
perilous a thing to die as it is to live. No child 
of God was ever lost, or even harmed, in the 
experience of dying : 

"The grave itself is but a covered bridge 
Leading from light to light through a brief darkness." 

But life is full of peril. To live truly we must 
battle day by day. Satan is no mediaeval myth, 
but an actual foe, powerful, cunning, treacherous, 
terrible. Danger lurks in every shadow. 

The question in life is not how to escape tempta- 

35 



36 IN HIS STEPS. 

tion, but how to pass through it so as not to be 
harmed by it. Christ's way of helping us is not 
by keeping us out of the conflicts. All the best 
things in life — the only things worth grasping — 
lie beyond the fields of struggle, and we can get 
them only by overcoming. It would be no kind- 
ness to us were God to withdraw us into some 
sheltered spot whenever there is danger, or if he 
were to fight our battles for us, thus freeing us 
from all necessity to struggle. 

"He who hath never a conflict hath never a victor's palm, 
And only the toilers know the sweetness of rest and calm." 

We must meet temptation, and we must make up 
our minds to fight. Not to fight is to lose all. And 
there is really no need to yield. The weakest child 
may move unharmed through the sorest strifes. It 
is possible to meet the strongest temptations and 
not be hurt by them. It has been done. Men 
have met the fiercest enemies, the most unrelent- 
ing oppositions, passing through the hottest flames, 
and have come out, like the Hebrew children from 
the king's furnace, without even the smell of fire 
on their garments. Whatever may be said of the 
weakness of human nature unhelped and unsus- 



MEETING TEMPTATION. 37 

tained, there still is no need for any trembling 
soul to faint in the strife or to fall in its fury. 
There is a divine Helper who himself went into 
the thickest of the strife and passed through it 
unharmed. He was "tempted in all points, like 
as we are, yet without sin "— that is, victoriously ; 
and because he was thus victorious he is able not 
only to understand human struggles and to sym- 
pathize with every one who i& tempted, but also 
vo give " grace to help in time of need." We 
have the assurance that the faithful God will not 
suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, 
but will with the temptation make the way of 
escape that we may be able to endure it. 

There is, therefore, a way of so living in this 
world as to miss harm from even the fiercest temp- 
tations — to pass through them and not be touched 
by them. There is even a way of so meeting temp- 
tations as to get benefit and blessing from them. 
An apostle said, " Count it all joy when ye fall 
into manifold temptations : knowing that the proof 
of your faith worketh patience ;" " Blessed is the 
man that endureth temptation ; for when he hath 
been approved he shall receive the crown of life, 
which the Lord rromised to them that love him," 



38 IN HIS STEPS. 

Rightly meeting and victoriously resisting puts new 
fibre into the soul. The Indians say that when a 
warrior kills a foe the spirit of the vanquished 
enemy enters the victor's heart and adds to his 
own strength. This is true in spiritual warfare. 
We grow stronger through our struggles and vic- 
tories. Each lust conquered, each evil subdued, 
adds to the strength of our soul. 

The question, then, is how to meet temptation so 
as to overcome, and thus win the blessing there is in 
it. We must remember, first of all, that we are not 
able in ourselves successfully to fight our bat- 
tles. If we think we are, and go forth in our 
own name and strength, we shall fail. Life is 
too large, and its struggles and conflicts are too 
sore, for the strongest human power unaided. We 
must settle it once for all that we can conquer 
only in the name and by the help of the strong 
Son of God. We may come off the field more 
than conquerors, but only through Him that 
loved us. We can pass safely through all the 
fierce dangers of this world and be kept un- 
spotted amid its sin and foulness, but only if 
we have with us Him who is able to guard us 
from stumbling and set us before the presence 



MEETING TEMPTATION. 39 

of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy. 
Self-confidence in times of temptation is fatal 
folly. 

Then we must be sure that the temptation we 
are meeting really lies in the path of our duty — 
that God calls us to meet it. We pray each morn- 
ing, " Lead us not into temptation ;" we must, 
then, be sure that we are following our Father's 
leading when we enter any way of temptation. 
Only when the temptation comes in the path 
over which the divine Guide takes us have we 
the assurance of protection in it. There are temp- 
tations the only way of escape from which is avoid- 
ance. We have no right to meet them. 

Lord Macaulay tells us that at the siege of 
Naumur, while the conflict was raging, William, 
prince of Orange, who was giving his orders 
under a shower of bullets, saw with surprise and 
anger among his staft-officers Michael Godfrey, 
the deputy governor of the Bank of England. 
He had come to the king's headquarters on busi- 
ness, and was curious to see real war. 

" Mr. Godfrey," said King William, " you ought 
not to run these hazards. You are not a soldier ; 
you can be of no use to us here." 



40 IN HIS STUPS. 

" Sir," answered Godfrey, " I run no more risk 
than Your Majesty." 

" Not so," said William. " I am where it is my 
duty to be, and I may without presumption com- 
mit my life to God's keeping ; but you — " 

Before the sentence was finished a cannon-ball 
laid Godfrey dead at the king's feet. 

The king's words were true, and the truth is just 
as applicable to temptations and spiritual dangers 
as to the perils of war. When duty calls us into 
any place, we are safe : God will protect us ; but 
otherwise we venture without any promise of 
shelter. We must face danger only when God 
and duty unmistakably lead. 

Then, when we find ourselves in the presence of 
temptation, we must not forget that we have some- 
thing ourselves to do in getting the victory. Men 
and devils may tempt us, but men and devils can- 
not force us to yield. We are sovereigns in our 
choices while the right and the wrong stand be- 
fore us. Other wills may seek to influence us — 
may plead, entreat, persuade — but they cannot 
compel. We cannot avoid being tempted, but 
we ought to avoid yielding to temptation. Luther 
used to say, "We cannot keep the birds from 



MEETING TEMPTATION. 41 

flying around our heads, but we can prevent them 
building their nests in our hair." So we cannot 
keep temptations away from our ears nor prevent 
them whispering their seductive words close by us, 
but we can hinder them making their nests in 
our hearts. We are not passive in this matter. 
We must not expect God to fasten the door and 
all the time hold his hand upon the lock. The 
shutting and opening of the door is our part of 
the responsibility. Even God himself will never 
come into our heart unless we voluntarily open it 
to him. He stands without and knocks, waiting 
with all his wealth of love and all his power to 
bless until we bid him welcome. We with our 
frail weakness can keep even Omnipotence out- 
side. And, as divine grace cannot enter to do 
us good unless we open, neither can satanic evil 
enter to work ruin in our souls. Thus the final 
responsibility is with ourselves. Our duty, there- 
fore, in temptation is unwavering resistance — an 
unreversible "No!" to every solicitation to sin. 
If we settle this point, we have learned one of the 
greatest lessons in spiritual warfare— -" having done 
all, to stand." 

Besides this, nothing more is needed but faith 



42 IN HIS STEPS. 

and prayer. When the temptation comes in the 
path of duty, and when we resist it with unflinch- 
ing determination, we may with simple confidence 
commit our safety to God. No evil can ever harm 
us if we cleave unfalteringly to Christ : " He shall 
give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all 
thy ways." Still better : " The Lord is thy Keeper." 
" I have known a timid traveler," says one, 
" whose route lay across the higher Alps, on a 
path that, no broader than a mule's foothold, 
skirted a dizzy precipice, where we saw the foam- 
ing river, far below, diminished to a silver thread, 
find it safest to shut his eyes, nor attempt to guide 
the course or touch the bridle where a touch were 
fatal, throwing the steed and rider over, to bound 
from shelf to shelf and be dashed to pieces in the 
valley below. And there are times and circum- 
stances when to be saved from falling . . . the 
believer must, if we may say so, shut his eyes, 
and, committing his way to God, let the bridle 
lie on the neck of Providence, and walk, not by 
sight, but faith. . . . When we are walking in 
darkness and have no light, there is nothing for 
it but to trust in the Lord and stay ourselves on 
God." 



MEETING TEMPTATION. 43 

There come times in every life when this is just 
the picture for us — when all we can do is to shut 
our eyes and let God lead us through the peril. 
Indeed, in all hours of darkness and danger, this 
is our privilege and our duty; and if we thus 
commit our way to God, he will bring us safely 
through the last peril and the last struggle into 
the light and joy of victory on the heavenly 
plains. 

Then it will be seen that it has been no mis- 
fortune that we have had to fight sore battles on 
the earth. Old war-veterans are not ashamed of 
their scars : these are marks of honor ; they tell of 
wounds received in battling for their country. In 
heaven the soldier of Christ will not be ashamed of 
the scars he has gotten in his warfare for his Lord 
on the earth ; his crown will be all the brighter for 
them. They will shine as the King's medals, deco- 
rations of honor — " the marks of the Lord Jesus." 

When an army marches home from a victorious 
field, it is not the bright, clean, untorn flag that is 
most wildly cheered, but the flag that is pierced, 
riddled and torn by the shot and shell of many a 
battle. So in the home-coming in glory it will not 
be the man who bears fewest marks of suffering 



44 IN HIS STEPS. 

and struggle and the fewest scars of wounds re- 
ceived in Christ's service who will be welcomed 
with the greatest joy, but the man who bears the 
marks of the sorest conflicts and the greatest suf- 
ferings for the honor of his Lord and for his 
kingdom. 



WORKING FOR CHRIST: SERVICE. 

"Be thy best thoughts to work divine addressed; 
Do something— do it soon — with all thy might: 
An angel's wings would droop if long at rest, 
And God himself, inactive, were no longer blest.'' 

TT^ VERY truly-consecrated life has been made 
■^ over to Christ with all its powers. Faith 
implies full surrender : " Ye are not your own ;" 
" Ye are Christ's." Christ owns us first by right 
of creation, then by right of purchase; and we 
acknowledge his ownership and all that it includes 
when we accept him as our Saviour and Lord. 
We voluntarily and heartily give ourselves to 
him. The first question, therefore, of the new- 
believing heart is, "What shall I do, Lord?" 
We want to begin to work for our new Master. 
We belong to him; we are his slaves: that is 
the word St. Paul used so much, and with such a 
thrill of joy as he thought of the honor it denoted, 

45 



46 IN HIS STEPS. 

He was Christ's slave : " Whose I am, and whom I 
serve/' was his working creed. We belong abso- 
lutely to Christ ; he is our only Master. We are 
no longer our own in any sense, and have no right 
to our own way. " Thy will, not mine/' is hence- 
forth the only true law of life for us. We are to 
wait at each step for Christ's bidding. Our 
very thoughts must be brought into captivity 
to him. 

This ownership covers and embraces all life. 
We are to live for Christ while at our commonest 
daily work, pleasing and honoring him in every- 
thing we do. A heart of love for Christ makes 
all work holy service, and even " drudgery divine." 
It makes the sweeping of a room, the ploughing of 
a field, the sawing of a board, the making of a 
garment, the selling of a piece of goods, the mind- 
ing of a baby, all actions as fine as the ministry of 
angels. 

One way of working for Christ, therefore, is to 
be diligent in the doing of life's common daily 
tasks. The true giving of ourselves to God ex- 
alts all of life into divine honor and sacredness. 
Nothing is trivial or indifferent which it is our 
duty to do. We are never to neglect any work, 



WORKING FOR CHRIST. 47 

however secular it may seem, in order to do 
something else which appears to be more relig- 
ious. It is not a common fault, but there are 
some people who would be better Christians if 
they paid more heed to their own daily business 
and attended fewer meetings and did less " relig- 
ious gossiping." Ruskin says, " Neither days nor 
lives can be made holy by doing nothing in them. 
The best prayer at the beginning of a day is that 
we may not lose its moments; and the best grace 
before meat, the consciousness that we have justly 
earned our dinner." 

But, besides this living of the whole life for 
Christ, there is specific work for him in which 
every Christian has a part to perform. There 
are lost souls all about us, and every one who is 
saved should do something toward saving others. 
This is not alone the work of ordained preachers : 
" Let him that heareth say, Come." The first 
thought of a truly saved person is of some friend 
or friends who are still in peril, and the first im- 
pulse of a renewed heart is to try to bring these 
lost ones to the Saviour. The cause of Christ in 
this world needs assistance in many ways, and it is 
the will of the Master that this cause should be ad- 



48 IN HIS STEPS. 

vanced, not by the ministry of angels, not by Christ 
himself immediately and directly, but by his people 
— those whom he has redeemed and saved. The 
story of salvation must be told by lips that have 
first uttered the cry for mercy. The lost must be 
Avon by the love of hearts that have first been 
broken in penitence. The divine blessing of sal- 
vation must be carried in earthen vessels to the 
perishing. 

Every Christian has something to do for Christ in 
this world. No one can be exempted. The fullest 
hands must make room for some little part of 
the Master's work. Even the child that loves 
Christ may at least carry a cup of the water of 
life to some thirsty soul. 

Every Christian should be deeply imbued with 
the missionary spirit. A portion of the responsi- 
bility for carrying the news of salvation to every 
creature rests on each follower of Christ. In these 
days of missionary activity there is no one who 
cannot do something to help send the gospel to 
heathen lands. Every young Christian should 
consider himself, from the moment of his con- 
secration to Christ, a debtor to all men, near and 
far, who are not yet saved, and in prayer and 



WORKING FOR CHRIST. 49 

work and gift he should seek to pay that debt to 
the last atom of his ability. 

There is also very much of sorrow and suffering 
in this world, and every Christian should do all in 
his power to comfort the sorrow and alleviate the 
suffering. Here, as in all things, Christ himself is 
our example and his life is our pattern. We rep- 
resent him in this world. He has gone away to 
heaven, but he has left his people here to carry 
on his work. 

Christ's early life was full of kindness and gen- 
tleness. There were a great many people about 
him who were troubled and unhappy. Some of 
them were sick, some were blind, some were lame, 
some were leprous, some had sorrow in one form 
or another. To all of these Jesus showed the 
sweetest spirit of kindness. He pitied them. He 
was touched with compassion as he saw their suf- 
ferings. He was deeply interested in every case. 
He gave real and true sympathy. Nor did he 
stop with tender emotion and kindly words : he 
put forth his power and helped the sufferers in 
whatever way they most needed help. The sick 
he healed; the troubled he comforted in such a 
manner that they never forgot his gracious love. 



50 IN HIS STEPS. 

We must try to repeat this part of Christ's 
ministry. There are troubled ones about us all 
the time — those who are sick or poor or carry- 
ing some heart-burden of care or grief; those 
who have been crushed by adversity or trodden 
down in the dust of failure and defeat; those 
who are suffering from wrong or injustice. We 
do not know half the sorrows that the people 
whom we meet every day are enduring. Here 
is a wide field for most Christlike and most 
helpful ministry. What we need for it is a spir- 
it of sympathy and kindness that shall never fail. 
We may not be able to do much to relieve those 
who are troubled: we certainly cannot work mir- 
acles as Christ did ; but we may have a heart of 
love which shall manifest itself toward every 
one in a spirit of patient gentleness and kindly 
thoughtfulness. It does a great deal of good 
just really to care for people who are in trouble 
and to show them that we care for them — to be 
truly interested in them and willing to try to 
help them. Sincere sympathy is ofttimes better 
than money. People in distress generally need 
a friend more than they need gift or miracle. 
God sends no angels to earth whose ministry 



WORKING FOR CHRIST. 51 

leaves more benedictions of joy, of help, of in- 
spiration, of uplifting, of restoring, than are left 
by that of the angel of true human sympathy. 

Here is Christian work, too, that every Christian 
can do. In this kind of service we do not need 
money, or eloquence, or brilliant gifts, or a fine 
education : we need only to have in us the true 
spirit of Christ, a spirit of unselfish love, and 
then blessing will flow from our lives even with- 
out effort or purpose, unconsciously, as fragrance 
pours from a flower, as light streams from a lamp. 

"As some rare perfume in a vase of clay 
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, 
So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul, 

All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown." 

Christ did other kinds of work, but it was the 
same spirit that wrought in all his ministry. He 
taught the people; he scattered the words of truth; 
he lifted up his voice against wrong and sin ; he 
sought the lost and led them back to the Father ; 
he went to the cross in the room of sinners. In 
all forms of personal ministry we are to strive 
to follow in his steps. The golden seeds of heav- 
enly truth which his lips dropped we are to seek to 



52 IN HIS STEPS. 

scatter everywhere in life's desert-fields. The 
very best thing we can do for people in this world 
of sin and sorrow is to get the words of Christ 
into their hearts. It is like scattering flower-seeds 
on the black lava-beds about the fiery mountain's 
base : in the crevices the seeds will root and grow, 
and sweet flowers will bloom by and by. Christ's 
words are living seeds from which spring up 
heavenly plants to beautify and bless bleak and 
dreary lives over which sin's fires have rolled. 
The tiniest hand and the weakest can scatter these 
seeds in some bare spot where they will grow. 

It is the little things that all of us can do in 
Christ's name that in the end leave the largest 
aggregate of blessing in the world. We need 
not wait to do great and conspicuous things. 
One Amazon is enough for a continent, but there 
is room for a million little rivulets and purling 
brooks. A life that every day gives its bless- 
ing to another and adds to the happiness of 
some fellow-being by only a word of kindness, or a 
thoughtful act, or a cheering look, or a hearty hand- 
grasp, does more for the world than he who but once 
in a lifetime does some great thing which fills a 
land with his praise. Nothing done for Christ is 



WORKING FOR CHRIST. 53 

lost. The smallest acts, the quietest words, the 
gentlest inspirations that touch human souls, leave 
their impress for eternity. 

"Drop follows drop, and swells 
With rain the sweeping river ; 
Word follows word, and tells 
A truth that lives for ever. 

"Flake follows flake, like sprites 
Whose wings the winds dissever; 
Thought follows thought, and lights 
The realm of mind for ever. 

"Beam follows beam, to cheer 

The cloud a bolt would shiver; 
Throb follows throb, and fear 
Gives place to joy for ever. 

"The drop, the flake, the beam, 
Teach us a lesson ever ; 
The word, the thought, the dream, 
Impress the soul for ever." 

Then, while we are giving out blessings to help 
and to enrich other lives, we are receiving also into 
our own hearts. The words of the Master are 
literally true: "It is more blessed to give than 
to receive." The song we sing to cheer a weary 



54 IN HIS STEPS. 

spirit echoes new cheer into our own soul. The 
sacrifice we make to help one in distress leaves 
us not poorer, but richer. Love's stores are not 
wasted by giving: the more we give, the more 
we have left. The way to grow rich in the 
treasures of kindness and affection is to show 
kindness and affection to all who need. If we 
find our spiritual life languishing, its resources 
growing small, the true way to refresh it is not 
by closer economy in giving out to others, but 
by greater generosity. 

"For the heart grows rich in giving: 
All its wealth is living grain ; 
Seeds which mildew in the garner, 
Scattered, fill with gold the plain. 
* * * * « 

"Is the heart a living power? 

Self-entwined, its strength sinks low: 
It can only live in loving, 
And by serving love will grow." 

In every living church there are various organized 
forms of Christian activity; in some one or more 
of these every member should in some way be en- 
gaged. Let the young Christian at once choose 
the particular class of work to which he decides 



WORKING FOR CHRIST. 55 

to lend his hand, and promptly identify himself with 
the organization or society or band which has 
in view the special work he has selected. There 
should not be one idle Christian in any church. 
One of the most withering curses uttered in the 
Scriptures is against uselessness — -against those 
who come not up to the help of the Lord against 
the mighty. 

Thus Christian work is not only a duty, but a 
means of grace. It is not the rest of inaction to 
which Christ calls us, but the rest of loving ser- 
vice. Every power of our being we should give 
to him to be used. Every gift we possess should 
be employed in doing good. That day is a lost 
day in which we do nothing to bless some other 
life in the name of Christ. 

"Work for some good, be it ever so slowly; 
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly : 
Labor! all labor, is noble and holy; 
Let thy good deeds be a prayer to thy God." 



VI. 

HELPS: PERSONAL PRAYER. 

TTTE all need helps in our Christian life. Of 
course, all the help we need we can find in 
God. His is the almighty arm on which we 
should ever lean in our weakness; his is the 
infinite life from whose fullness we should ever 
draw for the refilling of our own exhausted 
life-pitchers; his is the light that should ever 
shine upon our darkness for cheer, for comfort, 
for guidance, for joy. God is all we need. 

But we cannot see God with these mortal eyes ; 
we cannot feel his bosom when we need to lean 
upon it ; we cannot hear his voice when we listen 
for the word he may have to speak ; we cannot 
carry our empty pitchers up to heaven, where 
God dwells, to have them refilled. We are like 
vines torn off the trellis and trailing on the ground 
amid the dust and the weeds, and we cannot lift 
ourselves up to twine about the unseen supports 

56 



PERSONAL PRAYER. 57 

which God's grace provides. We need something 
to help our dull senses — something we can see or 
hear or touch ; something to interpret to our souls 
and bring near to them the spiritual things of 
divine love; something to which the tendrils of 
our lives can cling, and which will lift them up 
and fasten them on the invisible realities of the 
spiritual world. And in loving mercy, and in 
condescension to our weakness and spiritual dull- 
ness, God has provided for us such helps as we 
need. He comes to us and brings us his bless- 
ings in ways that are adapted to our earthly 
state and capacity. He puts the rich supplies 
of his heavenly grace in cups from which we 
can drink, and sets them low down where we 
can reach them. 

One of the helps which God has provided is 
prayer. Without prayer no Christian life can 
exist. There are other spiritual helps from the 
want of which we may suffer, but without which 
we may still live near to God; but to give up 
prayer is to die. 

Why should we pray? Because God is our 
Father and we are his children. It would be a 
most undutiful, unfilial, ungrateful child that 



58 IN HIS STEPS, 

should live in a good and beautiful home, enjoy- 
ing its comforts, blessed by its love, and that 
should never have anything to say to the father 
whose heart and hand make the home, and who 
provides its comforts and pleasures. 

We should pray, also, because we need things 
which we can get only by prayer. Some things 
we can pick up with our hands in this good world 
of our Father's, or buy with our money, or receive 
through our friends; but there are things which 
we can get only directly from God himself, 
and only by asking him for them. He alone 
can forgive our sins ; and unless we are forgiven, 
life is not worth living. He alone can give us 
new hearts; and unless we have new hearts, we 
can never enter heaven. He alone can give us 
grace to live a good and holy life and keep us 
from sinking back into sin. He alone can show 
us how to live out the divine purpose of our exist- 
ence. He alone can help us to fight life's battles 
and come out victorious at the end. He alone can 
lead us through Death's valley to glory. Indeed, 
we can do nothing without God. The leaf quiver- 
ing on the bough is not more dependent upon the 
tree for its greenness and life than are we de- 



PERSONAL PRAYER. 59 

pendent upon God for our very existence and 
for all blessings. We must pray or perish. 

But may we pray ? Is there any one to hear ? 
We look up, and we see no face in the heavens, 
no eye gazing down — nothing but sky and clouds 
or stars. We speak and then listen, but no 
answer conies to us : all is silence about us. Is 
there really any one to hear? Or if there is, 
will he hear? There are a great many millions 
of people on the earth, and there are millions of 
other worlds besides this. Astronomers tell us 
that our globe, if it were suddenly destroyed, 
would not be more missed in God's vast universe 
than one leaf which you might pluck off a way- 
side bush would be missed from all the leaves on 
all the trees and forests of the earth. It may be 
that, like our planet, all these other countless 
worlds have their millions of inhabitants. Will 
God hear the cry of one person among so many ? 
Does he take notice of individuals ? Does he have 
particular thought and care for each one? The 
Bible plainly answers these questions. It tells us 
that God is our Father; that he loves us, not 
merely as a race, but as individuals — loves us 
each one with a peculiar personal affection, as 



60 IN HIS STEPS. 

a human father loves each one of his children 
though he have many ; that he thinks of us, 
giving to the smallest, humblest of us particular 
thought and care, watching over us, listening for 
our cry, ready always at any moment to give the 
help we need and seek. 

A little child fancied that when she began to 
pray, God asked all the angels to stop singing and 
playing on their harps while he listened to her 
prayer until she said "Amen !" She was not 
far wrong in her fancy. God does not need to 
hush the angels' songs to hear a child's prayer, 
but he hears it, nevertheless, amid all the noises 
of this great universe, just as truly and clearly 
as if every other voice were hushed. One of 
the Psalms represents God as inclining his ear 
to the suppliant on the earth to hear his cry, as 
a man bends down so as to bring his ear close to 
one who speaks, that he may catch every word. 
In another psalm are these remarkable words: 
"He hath looked down from the height of his 
sanctuary : from heaven did the Lord behold the 
earth ; to hear the groaning of the prisoner." The 
Bible is full of just such representations of God's 
interest in his children on the earth, and of his 



PERSONAL PRAYER. 61 

loving attention when they cry to him. We may 
pray, therefore: there is One to hear us. 

How shall we pray so as to be heard and to re- 
ceive help ? For one thing, there must be a real 
desire in our hearts. Forms of words do not make 
prayer : we must want something, and must realize 
our dependence upon God for it. Then we must 
come to him as his children. It was Christ him- 
self who taught us to pray to "our Father who 
art in heaven." If we have the true child-spirit 
which the using of this invocation implies, we 
shall make our requests with confidence, believ- 
ing that our Father loves us and will deny us 
nothing that is for our good. 

Of course, we must remember that he knows 
better than we do what is best for us, and we must 
be willing, even when our desires are strongest and 
most impetuous, to say, "Nevertheless, not my will, 
but thine, be done." We must let our Father de- 
cide whether the thing we ask is the thing we 
need. A father would not give his child a cup 
of poison though the child pleaded most earnestly 
for it, thinking it a cup of sweetness. The thing 
we want might be poison to our life; if so, God 
will not give it to us, but, instead, will give us 



62 IN HIS STEPS. 

grace to do without it, which is an answer to 
our desire, and a far better answer than the thing 
we sought. 

Prayer should also be earnest and importunate. 
Our Lord gave many lessons on praying, but there 
was no other point which he pressed so strongly as 
the necessity for importunity. Two of his parables 
were spoken to impress this duty. The poor widow 
got her plea, not because the unjust judge cared for the 
injustice she was suffering or wanted to do the right 
thing, but simply because she would not cease to 
plead with him. If an unjust man could be so 
moved by import u city, how much more will the 
loving heart of the heavenly Father yield to 
repeated supplication ! The man at whose door 
at midnight the friend knocked gave the loaves, 
not because it was his friend who asked them, but 
because the friend would not go away without 
them. God is never moved by such low motives, 
but the parable is meant to show the power of per- 
severing importunity in prayer. God wants to see 
his children in earnest. Languid, indolent pray- 
ing does not please him : he loves to hear from 
suppliants the burning words which tell of intense 
desire. One fervent, impassioned " I will not let 



PERSONAL PRAYER. 63 

thee go except thou bless me" has more power 
with God than whole years of cold, heartless, 
formal prayer. 

Of course, importunity must not become rebel- 
liousness : in the greatest intensity of our praying 
we must ever be ready to acquiesce in God's will. 
Importunity has its limits. It may at length become 
evident that God does not want to give us what we 
desire; then we should cease to plead, with sub- 
missive faith accepting our Father's refusal. Thus 
our Lord himself in the garden was importunate, 
but from first to last he deferred all to his Father's 
will; and after having prayed three times he ceased 
to plead, taking the cup held out to him. Paul 
was importunate in pleading for the removal of 
the thorn which so troubled him, but, like his 
Master, he also was acquiescent ; and after plead- 
ing three times he too ceased to urge his plea. 

There is little danger that we ever too earn- 
estly or importunately press our desires for spirit- 
ual good, either for ourselves or for others. We 
know it is always God's will to give us more 
grace, to make us holier and purer, to bring 
out in us more clearly the features of the divine 
image, to give us more of his Holy Spirit : these 



64 IN HIS STEPS. 

are always blessings ; but when the desire refers to 
some physical trouble, or to the life of a friend, or 
to money, or to any of the interests of this earth, 
we need to watch lest the glory of God be forgot- 
ten in the intensity of our own shortsighted and 
worldly-biased wishes. In all prayer for temporal 
things it is far safer and wiser to ask humbly and 
with great diffidence, laying our desires at God's 
feet without anxious pressure, without too much 
urgency, and trustfully submitting all to his un- 
erring wisdom. The true aim in living is not to 
grow rich in money, not to be clothed in worldly 
honor, not to have mere worldly happiness and 
freedom from suffering and loss, but rather to 
grow rich in spiritual graces, to be made more 
and more like Christ and to live out God's pur- 
pose and plan for our life. By far the noblest 
thing for us always is God's will. That means 
perfect beauty and perfect good. Anything else 
is marring and blemish. 

When shall we pray? The young Christian is 
in danger of forming his religious habits too much 
by rules. Where the spirit of prayer is in the 
heart, there is little need to say just how or 
when prayer should be offered. Still, there must 



PERSONAL PRAYER, 65 

be habits. Our human nature needs them to 
hold it faithful. Merely to trust to the feeling 
or desire, and to have no fixed time for devotion, 
praying only when the heart prompts, is not safe. 
The end would be a prayerless life. The lamps 
in the temple burned continually, but they were 
trimmed and refilled each morning and evening. 
The flame of devotion in a Christian heart should 
never go out, but this lamp too should be replen- 
ished at least each morning; and evening. Cer- 
tainly, there should be a season of secret prayer 
at the opening, and again at the close, of every 
day. " In the morning it seems a hem and bor- 
der to each day's life, and in the evening it brings 
down the dew on the spirit, to wash off the stain 
and dust, and to feed and refresh." In the morn- 
ing the day lies before us with its unforeseen and 
untried experiences. It may bring painful duty, 
or sore struggle, or hard task, or keen suffering, 
or sharp temptation, or perhaps death. How can 
we go out into the opening day which may have 
such experiences for us without seeking the guid- 
ance and help of God ? In the evening we bring 
the day's history for review. There are sins to be 
forgiven ; there is work to be blessed ; there are 



66 IN HIS STEPS. 

thanks to be spoken for mercies ; there is weariness 
to be refreshed ; there is hunger to be fed. Then, 
as we go into the darkness and defencelessness of 
the night, there is protection to be invoked, and 
new life for a new day. 

We need to watch always that our prayers are 
real, fresh from our hearts, and that they never 
degenerate into mere formalities, words without de- 
sires, petitions without wishes and without faith. 
True prayer is talking to God as one talks to a 
friend ; mere , words are empty mockeries. We 
pray best in secret when we tell out our souls' 
deepest wants in the simplest phrases. As we 
grow in Christian life prayer becomes more and 
more real to us. Dr. Phelps says, " Three stages 
of growth are commonly discernible respecting 
prayer in the Christian consciousness. They are, 
prayer as a resource in emergencies, prayer as a 
habit at appointed times, and prayer as a state in 
which a believer lives at all times/' In this last 
and highest development stated times of prayer 
are not abandoned, but the heart does not limit 
itself to these in communing with God. The 
spirit of devotion overflows the fixed hours of 
prayer and continuously holds fellowship with God 



PERSONAL PRAYER. 67 

Even the busiest hours of work are brightened by 
many a moment of heavenly communion. This is 
what is meant by men walking with God. They 
talk to him while at their work in ejaculations of 
prayer. Thomas a Kempis says, " God alone is a 
thousand companions ; he alone is a world of 
friends. That man never knew what it was to 
be familiar with God who complains of the want 
of friends while God is with him." It is this 
state of constant and unbroken communion with 
God toward which we should all strive. Let the 
life of the closet flow out into all the busy hours 
of the busiest days. It will be a defence for us 
amid temptations. It will give us power in Chris- 
tian service. It will hallow all our influence. It 
will make holy and pure every nook and cranny 
of our lives. It will give us great peace in the 
midst of dangers. It will hold us apart from the 
world and near to God wherever we go. Like the 
beloved disciple, our habitual place will then be on 
the bosom of Jesus, and our earthly spirits will 
then become filled with the brightness and the 
sweetness of his love. 

Thus prayer is indeed the Christian's very vital 
breath. To cease to pray is to cease to live. And 



68 IN HIS STEPS. 

the gate of prayer is never shut. We should keep 
the path to it well trodden. We can there find 
help in all weakness, light in all darkness, com- 
fort in all sorrow, companionship in all loneliness, 
friendship in all heart-hunger. If we know how 
to get help in prayer, we need never fail at any 
point in life ; for then all God's might of love is 
ever back of our weakness, as the great ocean is 
back of the little bay. 



VII. 

HELPS: THE BIBLE. 

ANOTHER indispensable help in Christian life 
is the Bible. In prayer, we talk to God ; in 
the Bible, God speaks to us. The first disciples 
heard the words of divine truth as they dropped 
directly from the lips of the great Teacher. They 
could bring their questions right to him, and he 
would answer them. They could ask him what 
he wanted them to do, and he would tell them. 
When they were in sorrow, the words of comfort 
fell, warm and tender, from the very lips of the 
Son of God into their sad hearts. One of his 
friends sat at his feet and listened reverently and 
lovingly to his instructions; another leaned his 
head on the Lord's bosom and whispered his 
confidential questions and received answers ; an in- 
quirer came by night to him and had a long talk 
with him about the way to be saved. Those were 
wonderful days when God himself was on this 

69 



70 IN HIS STEPS. 

earth in human form, speaking in the actual tones 
of human speech the words of life and answering 
men's questions with his own lips. But that day 
is past. We cannot any more hear the divine 
voice as men heard it then. Yet God still speaks. 
We can still bring our questions, and he will answer 
them. We can still sit at the Teacher's feet and 
hear his words. We can still rest our heads on 
his bosom in our sorrow and listen to his assur- 
ances of love. We can still ask him how to be 
saved, and get a plain, clear answer. God now 
speaks to men in his written word. 

The question is how to get help from the Bible. 
We know the help is there. Others find it, and 
we see their faces glow or the tears glisten in their 
eyes as they read its pages. But somehow it does 
not open to us as it does to others. We cannot say, 
" Oh how love I thy law ! it is my meditation all 
the day." We try to make ourselves love the 
Bible and to find its words sweeter than honey and 
more precious than gold; but, to be perfectly 
honest, we do not love it, nor do we find in it 
either the honey or the gold. Yet we know the 
sweetness and the richness are there if we could 
only find them. How may we read the book so 



THE BIBLE. 71 

that it will open to us and show us its wondrous 
treasures of light, of love, of comfort and of 
help? 

For one thing, we must rid ourselves of all su- 
perstitious notions about the Bible. It is not a 
talisman. Merely having a Bible in one's posses- 
sion or on one's person will neither drive away 
evil nor bring good. Soldiers entering battle 
sometimes throw away their cards and put their 
Bibles into their pockets : they imagine that then 
they will be safer in danger ; but a Bible in a sol- 
dier's pocket is in itself no more protection than a 
pack of cards. Nor, if he has it in his pocket only, 
will it be of any more use to him if he is killed 
in battle. The mere owning of a Bible or having 
one in the house does no one any good. It will be 
just as well to wear a crucifix or to nail a horse- 
shoe over the door. Let us get clear of all our 
superstitious impressions respecting the holy word. 

We must remember, also, that the mere reading 
of a certain portion of the Bible every day will 
not make us wise unto salvation, nor purify our 
hearts, nor give us comfort in sorrow, nor put a 
staff into our hand to help us along life's rough, 
steep paths. The Bible does not yield its blessing 



72 IN HIS STEPS. 

to such reading. The mere pronouncing of the 
words without even knowing what they mean or 
stopping to think or inquire is no better than for 
the Roman Catholic devotee to count her beads. 
Then, further, it is not enough to understand the 
words, or even to memorize them. There are many 
people who have great numbers of Bible texts at 
their tongues' end who never get any real help 
from them, nor make any practical use whatever 
of them. There are those who know the prom- 
ises and can quote them to others, who are not able 
to apply one suitable promise to their own personal 
needs, and who get no benefit for their own lives 
from the texts they remember. Hiding the Bible 
in the memory is not all that is necessary to make 
its treasures of help availing.* 

It may aid us here to inquire just what the 

* The statements in this and the preceding paragraphs may 
to some seem too bald, but it is to be remembered that the 
words are written for young Christians, and not primarily for 
the unawakened. No doubt mere thoughtless memorizing of 
the sacred words of divine truth may at last bring to the latter 
class great blessing. The whole intention of these paragraphs 
is to emphasize in the strongest way possible the importance of 
understanding the word and allowing it to work its due effect 
in the heart and life. 



THE BIBLE. 73 

office of the Bible is with reference to our per- 
sonal life. There are many books that it is 
necessary merely to read: they have no office 
or errand to us beyond the pleasure or instruc- 
tion which their pages may impart as we go over 
them Ordinary truths require no more than to 
be grasped or mentally accepted. They have no 
necessary bearing upon our personal living. No 
outcome of character is expected from them, save 
as all knowledge tends to broaden and enlarge the 
mind. We listen to a lecture on astronomy, and 
we hear many interesting things about the sun, the 
planets or the stars. We believe what we hear, and 
we may remember the facts ; but it is not expected 
that the knowledge of these scientific truths will 
make any change in our conduct or character to- 
morrow. If we are in trouble, these truths will 
not comfort us. We cannot pillow our heads upon 
them in sorrow. If we are perplexed about duty, 
we shall not get any light from our treasure of 
astronomical facts : the stars are too far away and 
too cold. The same is true of all similar knowl- 
edge ; our whole duty with regard to it is to 
receive it and to lay it up among our mental 
treasures. 



74 IN HIS STEPS. 

But there is more than this to be done with the 
truths of the Bible. They are moral truths, and 
they are meant to affect our character and conduct. 
They are the words of God, and as such they are 
meant to be obeyed. They reveal to us invisible 
things — things no natural human eye can ever 
see — and we are to believe in these unseen things 
as eternal realities and to live with reference to 
them. Every truth in the Bible has some practi- 
cal bearing upon life in some of its phases. 
The Bible is therefore a book for life, not merely 
for knoweldge. 

An illustration or two will make this plain. 
The first word that comes to the inquirer is, 
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved." It is not enough to know — even 
to understand — this word. It calls for an act — the 
committing of the sinful and ruined soul, utterly 
and for ever, for salvation, for life, for glory, into 
the hands of the only Redeemer and Saviour. — 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart." It is easy to memorize these words, 
but that is not all we are expected to do with 
them. They have their proper outcome only when 
they draw out our heart's holiest affections and 



THE BIBLE. 75 

fasten them upon God in loyal, consecrating devo- 
tion. — "This is my commandment, that ye love 
one another." The sentiment, men say, is admi- 
rable. It is extolled by many on whose hearts and 
lives it makes no impression whatever. No doubt 
the " sentiment " is very beautiful, but its true of- 
fice is intensely practical — to kindle in all Chris- 
tian hearts a wide, deep, generous, unselfish affec- 
tion which shall bind and hold together all believ- 
ers in a common and holy brotherhood. 

It is very plain that to make proper use of such 
words as these we must not only know and under- 
stand them and admire them as ethical teachings, but 
must also submit our lives to them, to be influenced, 
moulded, colored and directed by their require- 
ments — that is, we are to receive them as God's 
words of command to us and obey them accord- 
ingly. We are using the precepts and counsels 
of Scripture aright only when we are implicitly, 
unquestioningly and loyally walking in the way 
they mark out for our feet. The true outcome 
of the Bible as a book of commands is a holy 
personal life and a Christlike personal character. 
And the way to get help from the book is to 
come to it as to Christ himself, asking what he 



76 IN HIS STEPS. 

would have us to do, and then, as we read, submit- 
ting our life to every word's requirement. Thus 
the Bible will become to us a personal guide — the 
voice of Christ, ever saying, " This is the way ;" 
the hand of Christ, ever leading our feet in right 
and safe paths. 

There is another class of Bible words — the 
promises. These do not so much call for active 
obedience as for implicit belief and restful trust. 
They contain positive assurances of divine help 
and blessing in certain circumstances. They tell 
us of things which we cannot see. Thus they 
call for the exercise of faith, and it is therefore 
harder to make them available than in the case 
of commands and precepts. Many who are faith- 
ful in performing every explicitly required duty 
fail to get such help from God's promises in the 
hours of darkness and trial as these promises are 
intended to give. It is not because they are igno- 
rant of these divine pledges. They know them 
well; they can repeat and commend them to 
others in their need ; they even speak of them 
publicly, in address or conversation, with exul- 
tation. But when in their own lives there come to 
them the experiences for which these divine prom- 



THE BIBLE. 77 

ises were given, they derive from them no sup- 
port or help. They find no everlasting arm to 
lean upon, no strong hand to hold them up, 
no lamp shining in the darkness, no strength 
reinforcing their weakness. 

It is as if a ship should go to sea with a cargo of 
anchors in her hold, but when a storm arose should 
not have an anchor of her own ready for use. 
There are Christians whose memories are stored 
with Bible promises who yet, when trial comes, 
have not one blessed word which gives them any 
real help or comfort. They have tons of anchors, 
but none at hand to grip the rock and hold the ves- 
sel in the storm ; piles of alpenstocks laid away, but 
not one in their hands to use in climbing danger- 
ous paths ; great clusters of lamps hanging from the 
ceiling of memory, but not one lighted to throw its 
beams on their darkness; life-preservers in abun- 
dance to look at while the ship moves on over quiet 
seas, but not one to be found and buckled on when 
the vessel strikes the rock and goes down in sight 
of shore. 

How can Bible promises be made available in 
the times of need ? How can we get from them 
that help which they are intended to give us in 



78 IN HIS STEPS. 

living ? We must recognize and accept them as 
the sure and faithful words of God — words that 
will be fulfilled to the letter in the experience of 
every child of God who rests upon them. They 
must be hidden in the heart and kept always 
ready for instant use. Then, when the need comes 
for which these promises make provision, they must 
be laid hold upon, personally appropriated and 
trusted in as God's fresh and explicit words of 
assurance to his loved ones. 

It is, in fact, only in the experiences of real need 
that the value of the divine promises can be real- 
ized. One may greatly admire a lifeboat as he 
looks at it hanging in its place above the ship's 
deck on a fair morning, but its true worth he 
does not know until the ship is going down and 
the lifeboat is his only hope of rescue. It is so 
with Bible promises. We do not know their 
worth until we enter upon the experiences in 
which we are helpless without them. We may ad- 
mire them when all is fair and calm about us, but 
it is only when the shock of the tempest is on us 
and our earthly trusts are shattered that we can 
realize the value of the trusts which have God's 
arm underneath them. It is only when our path 



THE BIBLE. 79 

leads down into some dark gorge of trial where 
no earthly sunbeams fall that we learn the worth 
of the lamps of heavenly promise. 

Thus the Bible is a book for life, and only when 
we submit our lives to it can we get its help. The 
hungry heart will always find the bread. The 
sincere and simple-hearted seeker after truth will 
always find the truth. The submissive spirit 
will receive guidance. The believing soul will 
find the arm of the Eternal under every word 
of promise. 

As to the manner of reading the Bible, but few 
suggestions may here be given. The heart is the 
great matter: if the heart be right, God's Spirit 
will guide, and will not only open the beauties and 
the treasures of the Scripture and reveal its sweet- 
ness, but will also open the reader's eyes to behold 
the wondrous things that the sacred book contains. 
The Bible should certainly be read every day : 
our souls as well as our bodies need daily bread. 
It should be read, too, in connection with secret 
prayer : the two exercises mutually help each other. 
Devotion without the word to feed upon is inad- 
equate for our souls' needs, and without prayer the 
Bible does not open to us nor yield the blessing 



80 IN HIS STEPS. 

we seek. We should always keep the Bible lying 
open on the closet-table. 

With regard to the method, the Bible may 
be read in course, or read by books, or read by 
topics, or read to meet the needs of the day, or 
read fragmentarily without order or plan. Some 
persons read the Bible through every year. Too 
many read without system or method of any kind, 
beginning wherever the book opens ; and as a re- 
sult they read certain portions many times over, 
but leave whole sections unread and unexplored. 
Every intelligent Christian should seek to become 
familiar with all parts of the Bible, and therefore 
it is well to read it through regularly in order. 
Besides this, however, it is well to read also 
by topics, searching all the volume through with 
concordance and text-book, to know what the Holy 
Spirit teaches on all sides and all phases of a particu- 
lar subject. It is profitable, too, to read single books, 
if possible, at one sitting. This is especially help- 
ful to the understanding of the Epistles. As 
experience ripens and the book becomes more 
familiar it is pleasant and helpful to turn each 
day to passages that meet the peculiar needs of 
the day. Young Christians will usually find it 



THE BIBLE. 81 

profitable to begin with the story of Christ in 
the Gospels, studying the life and words of the 
Master until their hearts are filled w T ith thoughts 
and memories of Him whose life is their pattern 
and whose words are to guide their steps. 

The present system of international Sabbath- 
school lessons aifords an excellent opportunity for 
thorough and consecutive Bible study. In seven 
years the student is carried through the whole 
book. Of course many parts of it are not taken 
up in the lessons ; but if the portions thus omitted 
between the Sabbath sections are carefully read 
each week, the entire Bible will be gone over in 
the seven years. The daily " home readings " 
indicated in connection with the lessons form in 
themselves an excellent Bible-reading course cover- 
ing every day in the year. For most young peo- 
ple there is perhaps no better system of Scripture 
study than that which follows the order of the 
Sabbath-school course— the lessons, the home read- 
ings, the connecting portions and the references. 
If this is closely and conscientiously followed, day 
after day and year after year, it will in the end 
yield a full, intelligent and systematic knowledge 
of the word that makes wise unto salvation. 



82 IN HIS STEPS. 

But, in whatever order the Bible is read, let it 
surely be read. There are now so many commen- 
taries and other writings upon the Scriptures that 
we are in danger of reading a great deal about 
the Bible, while the book itself is neglected. It is 
important that we search the Scriptures themselves. 
Then each one should search for himself. It is not 
enough to take the golden findings that another has 
dug out : we must dig for ourselves. Above all, we 
must pray for light while we read, that we may 
discover the precious things that God has stored 
away in his word ; and we must pray for submis- 
sion, that we may be able to yield our lives to 
every influence of the truth ; and we must pray 
for faith, that we may be able to realize the 
invisible things of God which the holy word re- 
veals, and get their support and their blessing 
for our souls. 



VIII. 

HELPS: THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES. 

"OESIDES the help received in private devotion, 
-^ every young Christian needs the aid which 
the public services of the Church are designed to 
afford. We were not made to live alone. We lean 
upon and cling to one another " like trailing flowers 
that grow by interlacing." The necessities of our 
being require companionship. It is so in all the 
phases of our life. A hermit is a contradiction 
of nature. Mind best grows and develops in 
contact with other minds. Socially, too, we need 
one another. And the same is also true in the 
religious life. In one sense God himself is all we 
need, and in communion with him every want 
of our souls is met. 

"Yea, through life, death, through sorrow and through sin- 
ning, 
He shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed." 

83 



84 IN HIS STEPS. 

Yet the glory is so great, the splendor is so daz- 
zling, that we need human hands to bring the 
divine blessing down to us. Besides, the heart 
does not rise to its highest fervor in the solitude 
of the closet. Our warmest feelings of devotion 
are drawn out when we unite with others in 
associated service. The consciousness that a whole 
congregation of worshipers about us is moved by 
the same emotion that we experience, whether it be 
gratitude, confession of sin or prayer for mercy, 
deepens the emotion in us. 

Then there are special promises to those who 
unite in the services of God's worship. In times 
of great defection particular mention was made by 
the prophet of those " who feared the Lord and 
spake often one to another." It was said that 
" the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book 
of remembrance was written before him." Christ 
gave special promise of answer to prayer when his 
people shall agree in asking, implying that, as 
added strands make the cable stronger, so added 
hearts make the supplication more availing. He 
also gave a definite promise of his own presence 
where even two or three of his disciples shall 
meet together in his name. 



THE CHURCH AND ITS SER VICES. 85 

There is no doubt that there are blessings which 
we can obtain in the public worship, where many 
hearts mingle their homage and their prayers, 
which we cannot find in secret. Private devotion 
is indispensable and cannot be replaced by the 
public services, yet, in addition to all the aid 
we can get in our religious life in secret prayer 
and Bible-reading, we need, and cannot afford to 
neglect, public worship. To do so is to deprive 
ourselves of one of the greatest helps in Chris- 
tian life. 

We can better understand the nature of the help 
we may receive from the church-services if we 
have definite conceptions of the objects of public 
worship. 

One object is to honor God by bringing to him 
our hearts' homage. This element of worship is 
one that needs to be strongly emphasized, espe- 
cially in non-liturgical churches. Many persons 
have the impression that the sermon is the most 
important — even the all-important — feature of the 
service. Too little is made of the devotional part. 
The error is a very grave one. There can be no 
doubt that in the divine intention the primary 
object in public religious service is to worship 



86 IN HIS STEPS. 

God, to bring to him our hearts' love and adora- 
tion, our gratitude and our confession, and to renew 
before him our personal consecration. 

Another object in the public service is instruc- 
tion. The minister has been trained to be an 
expounder of the word of God. He has spent 
years in preparation for his work. He devotes 
the golden hours of every day to special study 
and thought, so as to be able each Sabbath to 
bring to his people and clearly and impressively 
put before them some important truth of Holy 
Scripture. Then the people come to the church 
to be instructed in things concerning God's char- 
acter and will and concerning their own needs 
and duties. 

A third object in the public service is spiritual 
growth and culture. We learn about God's char- 
acter, that we may adore and worship him more 
fervently ; about his will, that we may obey him 
more implicitly ; about his promises, that we may 
trust him more confidently ; about our duty, that 
we may do it more faithfully. The object of 
worship, also, so far as its influence upon our- 
selves is concerned, is the spiritual blessing and 
strength that come from communion with God 



THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES, 87 

and the opening of our hearts in the warmth of 
his presence. 

These public services are designed, therefore, and 
adapted to impart rich help to the sincere worship- 
er. The meeting with God is in itself an incalcu- 
lable blessing. No one can spend an hour in God's 
presence, looking up into his face and occupied 
with thoughts of him to the exclusion of worldly 
thoughts, and not experience a cleansing of heart 
and a warming of soul which will prove a great 
enriching of the life. All that is good in us 
receives quickening and new impulse in such an 
atmosphere ; all that is evil is checked and re- 
pressed. The influence of fellowship in worship 
with other Christians is also of great profit. We 
are lifted up on the tide of spiritual emotion. Our 
affections are purified. The bonds of Christian love 
are strengthened. There is the benefit, also, derived 
from the instruction in God's word which we re- 
ceive. Now we are warned against some danger ; 
now some sin in us is rebuked ; now it is a word 
of comfort which comes to cheer us in sorrow; 
now it is a new thought about God, the unveil- 
ing to us of an attribute in his character, which 
draws out in us fresh adoration and love ; now it 



88 IN HIS STEPS. 

is a call to some neglected duty. Besides all 
these benefits, there is the personal renewal of 
spiritual strength which we find in the house 
of God: "They that wait upon the Lord shall 
renew their strength." Life wastes our vigor. 
Its duties and struggles exhaust us. The Sab- 
bath services bring us again into communion with 
God, and the emptied pitchers are refilled. No 
one can spend an hour in God's house in true and 
sincere worship and not be better and stronger for 
it for many days. 

How to get from the church-services the help 
they have to give to us is one of the most import- 
ant practical questions in Christian life. No 
doubt there are rich possibilities of spiritual help 
in these public ordinances, if we know how to 
find the help. 

It is quite possible to attend the church-services 
even with commendable regularity and yet receive 
but little spiritual profit. There is no holy at- 
mosphere in the house of God, no heavenly ozone 
that is necessarily medicinal or tonic to our souls. 
There is no filtration of grace into our lives that 
goes on without agency of our own while we sit 
in our soft pews in the sanctuary with shut hearts 



THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES. 89 

and dream through a service. Forms of worship, 
whether plain or elaborate, are empty without the 
sincere homage and faith of loving hearts. They 
carry up to God just what w r e put into them ; they 
bring to us from God just what with prayer and 
faith we draw out of them. 

Two persons may sit side by side and take part 
outwardly in the exercises of devotion, yet from 
one there will rise to God pure incense and an 
acceptable offering, and from the other the empty 
mockery of a heartless and formal service; the 
one worshiper goes away strengthened and blessed, 
and the other carries away nothing but an empty 
hand and a cold, unblest heart. Whatever the 
forms of public service may be, the heart must be 
truly engaged or the worship will be vain and un- 
profitable. 

To make this chapter as helpful as possible to 
young Christians, a few definite practical sugges- 
tions are offered. 

To begin with, thoughtful preparation for the 
church-services will greatly increase their profit- 
ableness to those who engage in them. The very 
best ordinary preparation is a season of private 
devotion before going to the house of God. The 



90 IN HIS STEPS. 

heart is thus cleansed of its worldly thoughts, is 
opened and warmed toward God, and is in a suit- 
able condition to enter sincerely and earnestly into 
the public worship. 

A reverent approach toward and entrance into 
God's house are further aids to blessing in the ser- 
vices. We should at least remember that we are 
going to meet God, and should know and consider 
well on what errand we are going to meet him — 
to worship him and receive help for our own lives, 
if we have any real errand at all — and should have 
our expectations aroused in anticipation of the com- 
munion with God and his people which we are soon 
to enjoy, and our hearts eager with desire for the 
holy meeting. Many persons enter God's house 
with as little thoughtfulness and seriousness as if 
it were a concert or a literary entertainment they 
had come to hear. Such persons are not prepared 
either to render acceptable worship or to receive 
needed help in the service. We shall find in 
God's house and in his ordinances just what we 
are spiritually prepared to find. God must be 
in the heart, or we shall not see God in the 
exercises of worship. We shall never find in 
the sanctuary that which we do not seek and 







THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES. 91 

want to find. If we enter careless and indifferent, 
with no spirit of devotion, we shall carry away 
no blessing. If we come with longing and earn- 
est desire to meet God and lay our burdens at 
his feet, and rest and refresh ourselves in his 
presence, and receive new strength from him for 
duty, we shall find all we wish. 

Another condition of help is earnest personal 
interest in each part of the service. There is no 
blessing in our being merely among true wor- 
shipers and in the presence of God. A throng 
was close around Christ one day, but one only 
of them all was healed ; and she was healed 
because she reached out her trembling finger and 
in faith touched the hem of Christ's garment. 
The multitude thronged, but only one touched 
him. This history may be repeated any Sab- 
bath in any congregation. While many crowd 
close around Christ, only those will receive bless- 
ing who touch the hem of his robe. Even in 
public services we do not worship in companies, 
but as individuals. One sitting close beside us 
may hold delightful communion with God and re- 
ceive rich spiritual refreshment, while our own heart 
remains like a dry, parched field ; in the midst of 



92 IN HIS STEPS. 

the showers, yet receiving not one drop of rain from 
the full overhanging clouds. No matter what 
others may or may not do or receive, our busi- 
ness in God's house is personal. There is blessing 
there for us if we will take it. Suppose the min- 
ister is a little dull and the service a little weari- 
some ; yet is not God present ? And the blessing 
is not in the minister nor in the service, but in God 
himself, who is ready always to dispense to the 
tired and the hungry the rest and the bread they 
crave. Then, after the service, we should go 
away thoughtfully and reverently as we came. 
The custom which prevails in some churches of 
lingering a moment in silent prayer after the 
benediction is very beautiful and impressive. Let 
the last minute be spent looking into God's face 
for a parting benediction. 

Church-aisle sociability, so often commended, no 
doubt has its pleasant side, but it certainly has its 
disadvantages and its grave dangers. We may 
without spiritual harm greet one another cordially 
and affectionately in quiet tones as we pass out, but 
too often the conversation runs either into criticism 
of the preacher and the sermon or off on trivial 
and worldly themes. The consequence is, that the 



THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES. 93 

good seed sown is picked up and devoured by the 
birds before it has had time to root. We had 
better go away quietly pondering the great thoughts 
which the service has suggested to us, seeking to 
deepen in our hearts the impressions made and to 
assimilate in our lives the truths of God's word 
which have fallen upon our ears. 

From the church-gate back again to the closet 
whence we set out is the best walk to take after 
the service has closed. A few moments of secret 
prayer will carry the blessings of the sanctuary so 
deep into our hearts that thereafter they will be 
part of our very life. 

In the porch of the little parish church in Eng- 
land where Mr. Gladstone worships when he is at 
Hawarden Castle there is posted a notice contain- 
ing counsels to church-worshipers which are worthy 
of being inscribed in the gateway of every Christian 
church. The following is a transcript : 

"on your way to church. 
" On your way to the Lord's house be thought- 
ful, be silent ; or say but little, and that little good. 
Speak not of other men's faults ; think of your 
own, for you are going to ask forgiveness. Never 



94 IN HIS STEPS. 

stay outside ; go in at once : time spent inside 
should be precious. 

"in church. 
"Kneel down very humbly and pray. Spend 
the time that remains in prayers; remember the 
awful Presence into which you have come. Do 
not look about to see who are coming in, nor 
for any other cause. It matters nothing to you 
what others are doing : attend to yourself. Fasten 
your thoughts firmly on the holy service ; do not 
miss one word. This needs a severe struggle ; you 
have no time for vain thoughts. The blessed 
Spirit will strengthen you if you persevere. 

"after church. 
" Remain kneeling and pray. Be intent ; speak 
to no one till you are outside. The church is God's 
house even when prayer is over. Be quiet and 
thoughtful as you go through the churchyard. 

" ON YOUR WAY HOME. 

" Be careful of your talk, or the world will soon 
slip back into your heart. Remember where you 
have been and what you have done. Resolve and 
try to live a better life." 



THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES. 95 

A special word may fitly be spoken of the Lord's 
Supper and of the way in which we may get help 
from it. In the minds of many people a great 
deal of unnecessary mystery hangs about this 
ordinance. That which sets it apart from other 
services is that it is a memorial feast appointed 
by Christ himself in which our thought and faith 
are helped by visible elements which represent to 
us the great spiritual facts of our redemption. The 
help this service gives is not different from that 
received from other ordinances, unless it be that 
the use of the visible symbols brings Christ and 
his sacrificial work more vividly before our dull 
eyes than where words only are used to picture 
the same truths. In this sense it is a greater aid 
to faith than a sermon or a hymn ; but, as in all 
worship, so in the communion : the blessing comes, 
not from the ordinance itself, but from Christ. 

How, then, can we get from the Lord's Supper 
the help which it has to give ? Only by finding 
the way to Christ and submitting our hearts to the 
tender influences of his love as exhibited in symbol 
in the external rite. The Supper is a memorial ; we 
should remember Christ as we come to his Table. 
It is a memorial especially of our Lord's suffer- 



96 IN HIS STEPS. 

ings and death : we should recall his humiliation, 
his obedience, his agonies, his crucifixion, and 
think of the love that led him voluntarily to 
make himself an offering for sin. But memories 
alone will not bless us : there must be appropri- 
ating faith. " Broken for you" said the Master; 
"Broken for me" should be Faith's answer. 

There is much needless dread in many sensitive 
Christian hearts in approaching the Lord's Table. 
There is an impression that there is about this 
ordinance some peculiar sacredness which makes 
it perilous to engage in it without some special 
fitness which is not required for engaging in the 
other exercises of God's worship. This is a mis- 
take. There should be in the heart of the sincere 
Christian no more dread in going to the Lord's 
Table than in going to any other service. St. 
Paul's word " univorthily " — which has been mis- 
understood by so many — has reference entirely to 
the manner in which persons observe the ordinance. 

The Corinthians to whom he was writing made 
it a common feast, with reveling — even with drunk- 
enness. Of course, any one who would observe it 
in that way, or any one who would sit at the table 
without loving Christ, without believing in him, 



THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES. 97 

without truly worshiping him and submitting to 
him, or who should act irreverently or with levity, 
would be " guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." 
But in the apostle's word there is not the slightest 
allusion to those who feel themselves unworthy, yet 
who are sincere and true disciples of Christ. A 
sense of personal unworthiness is part of all true 
faith in Christ. 

" Not worthy, Lord, to gather up the crumbs 

With trembling hand that from thy table fall, 
A weary, heavy-laden sinner comes 

To plead thy promise and obey thy call." 

If the heart be sincere, if the trust in Christ be 
true though trembling, and the obedience loyal 
though imperfect, we have the same right to come 
boldly to the Lord's Table as to prayer or any 
other ordinance. We can sin in any act of wor- 
ship by formality, by insincerity, by levity, by 
want of heart, and we can sin in the same way 
in partaking of the Lord's Supper. We can sing 
a sacred hymn or listen to an earnest sermon or 
engage in the external form of prayer in such a 
way as to grieve Christ and harm our own souls. 

There is no reason, therefore, for dread in com- 



98 IN HIS STEPS. 

ing to the Lord's Table, any more than in engaging 
in any other sacred rite. We need to be sure only 
that we are truly in living union with Christ, that 
we are trusting him alone as our Saviour and fol- 
lowing him faithfully as our Lord, and that we 
come to his Table with a sincere desire to meet 
him and to seek blessing from him. 

The young Christian should never stay away 
from the Lord's Supper when it is celebrated in the 
church of which he is a member. If he is con- 
scious of sin and failure, let him make humble 
confession and start anew. The Lord's Supper 
will help him to do this. We cannot afford to 
miss this ordinance. The weaker we are, and the 
more unworthy, the more do we need it. Besides, 
it is in a peculiar sense a Christ-confessing ordi- 
nance : we take our place at his table, and we thus 
witness to the world that we are his. His honor 
therefore demands that w r e should never absent 
ourselves when his people thus confess him. 

There are other church-services which have their 
large possibilities of help for young Christians. 
Among these are weekly meetings for prayer. 
From Sabbath to Sabbath is a long stretch when 
the way is hard and the distractions are many, and 



THE CHURCH AND ITS SERVICES. 99 

the battles sore. The prayer-meeting is a little 
oasis midway. It is a place specially for the 
refreshment of Christians. Every young disciple 
should put it down among his positive weekly 
engagements. We cannot afford to miss it if we 
are at all earnest in our desire to be strong and 
noble Christians. 

The Sabbath-school is another of the church- 
services which no young Christian should miss. 
It is not for children only : it ought to be a 
Bible-school for the whole church, with its classes 
of young men and young women, and of old peo- 
ple with dim eyes and gray heads. It is on God's 
word that we all need to feed more and more. It 
will make us strong. It will lead us in right 
paths. It will beautify our character. It will 
put into our hand the sword of the Spirit for 
battle with temptation. It will prepare a pil- 
low for our head in sickness and sorrow. It 
will at the last guide us through the valley of 
the shadow of death. 

Thus it is that the church-services will help us. 
We all need them. We cannot neglect them and 
not suffer great harm and loss. Whenever the 
church-bell summons us to the house of God, 



100 IN HIS STEPS. 

we should gladly respond. We should rever- 
ently enter the gates of the sanctuary. We should 
worship God in sincerity and in truth. We should 
come away thoughtfully and with prayer. 

Then in the busy days that follow will come the 
proofs of the helpfulness and blessing that our 
lives have found in the services. The food that is 
eaten to-day is the strength of the laborer, the elo- 
quence of the orator, the skill of the artisan, to- 
morrow. The spring sunshine and rain that fall 
upon the dry briery rose-bush reappear in due 
time in fragrant, lovely roses. And sincere and 
true worship in the quiet of the sanctuary will 
show itself in the beautified character, the sweet- 
ened spirit, the brightened hope, the truer, better 
living and the holier consecration of the days 
of toil and struggle that come after. 



IX. 

GROWING IN ONE'S PLACE: PROVIDENCE. 

II TAN Y people imagine that they could live very 
much better if their circumstances were dif- 
ferent. In their failure to live a noble and worthy 
life they find comfort in laying the blame on 
some infelicity or hardness in their lot. This is 
really very foolish. For one thing, it does no 
good. Blaming circumstances will not change 
them. After all, they are our circumstances, 
and we must live out our life in the midst of 
them. Besides, God has in his providence put 
us just where we find ourselves, and unless we 
know better than he we must conclude that we 
are in the right place — at least, that it is quite 
possible for us to live a true Christian life where 
we are. 

"Thou camst not to thy place by accident: 
It is the very place God meant for thee ; 
And shouldst thou then small scope for action see, 

101 



102 IN HIS STEPS. 

Do not for this give room to discontent, 
Nor let the time thou owest to God be spent 
In idly dreaming how thou mightest be." 

God does not merely choose for us the place 
where we can have the most pleasant time with 
the least friction and the fewest weights and en- 
cumbrances. Life on the earth is a school, and 
he puts us where we shall be trained the best. 
The easier place might be more comfortable, but the 
harder place does the more for us — makes the more 
out of us. 

Some people think that if they could get away 
from others and live alone they would be better 
Christians. Men irritate them, tempt them, stir 
up the evil that is in them, excite them. But men 
do not grow best in solitude and apart from others. 
The goodness that is good only because there is no 
friction, no provocation, nothing to try it, is scarcely 
worth the having. Life needs life to school it and 
develop it. The old monks were wrong in their 
idea of Christian living when they supposed that 
they could reach a higher state of holiness by 
withdrawing from men and dwelling alone. God's 
plan is to set the solitary in families rather than to 
separate families into solitariness. We all need to 



GROWING IN ONE'S PLACE. 103 

be sometimes alone. There should be hours when 
we enter into our closet and shut the door that we 
may look in upon our own hearts and hold com- 
munion with God, but the closet is not to be our 
abiding-place. 

"Hark, hark! a voice amid the quiet intense! 

It is thy duty waiting thee without. 

Rise from thy knees in hope, the half of doubt; 
A hand doth pull thee : it is Providence : 
Open thy door straightway and get thee hence; 

Go forth into the tumult and the shout; 

Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about. 
Of noise alone is born the inward sense 
Of silence, and from action springs alone 
The inward knowledge of true love and faith." 

We all owe duties to others. To live only for 
one's self, though the aspiration be purely for 
holiness, is contrary to the spirit of true disciple- 
ship. Our duties to others are as manifold and 
as diversified as the varying phases and conditions 
of life's reciprocal relations. We are debtors to 
all men, far and near. God wants us on the earth 
to fulfill these duties. This is the way he wants 
us to serve him ; not by pure devotion apart from 
human relationships. The men who in olden days 



104 IN HIS STEPS. 

left society and fled to the cloister simply ran away 
from their chief mission. We are not left in this 
world after conversion merely to pray and praise : 
God wants us to be useful, to do his work, to run his 
errands, to help his needy, suffering ones, to train 
children for his service, to fight his battles, 

"What are we set on earth for? Say to toil, 
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines 
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines 
And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. 
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil 
To wrestle, not to reign. . . . 

So others shall 
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand 
From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer, 
And God's grace fructify through, thee to all. 
The least flower with a brimming cup may stand 
And share its dewdrop with another near." 

But it is not alone for the sake of others that 
God has appointed us to live out our life among 
men rather than apart and alone : it is for our 
own sake as well. We grow best among other 
lives. It may seem to us that if we could get 
away from society we should escape many tempta- 
tions and be able to live nearer to God. But we 
would then miss the blessing which comes from 



GROWING IN ONE'S PLACE. 105 

struggle and victory. Heaven and its honors are 
for " him that overcometh." Not to enter the 
struggle is to fail of the white robe and palm of 
the victor. The best things in life are not found 
along flowery walks, but in the fields of conflict. 
There are qualities in us that can be developed 
only in struggle. To find easy places away from 
the strife of battle is to lose the discipline that 
makes grand character. 

All relative duties are means of grace. The 
mediaeval monk who fled from the world to escape 
its toils and cares in order to enjoy unbroken com- 
munion with God lost far more than he gained. He 
cultivated only one side of his nature, and that but 
imperfectly ; for the two classes of duties — to God 
and to man— are so intertwined that neither can be 
performed while the other is neglected. We can- 
not love God and not love our fellow-men ; we 
cannot serve God and not serve one another. 

Sometimes we think that if we could get away 
from business cares and household burdens and 
social obligations we could be better Christians. 
It seems to us that these duties are not favorable to 
spiritual culture, and that we could be holier and 
could live more as Christ lived if we were freed from 



106 IN HIS STEPS. 

their exacting and absorbing claims. But this is a 
mistake. It is in these very common duties that 
the powers of life are best developed. God puts 
the new life into our hearts, but we must work it 
out into strength and beauty. And there is no 
way to do this but by exercise. If we would 
develop the love of our hearts, we must love 
actual people; the sentiment must take practical 
form; the seed-germ must be cultivated; and for 
this no mere cloister-culture will do. If we would 
learn patience, there is no school but in experiences 
that require us to exercise patience. Christ said 
that rank among disciples is won by serving, that 
he who serves most is chief: we can gain this 
spiritual eminence only by filling our place in 
the midst of human needs and sufferings. The 
serving must be real serving of actual living 
people ; no fine sentiment alone will exalt us. 
Good feelings and dispositions of whatever kind 
can become part of the fibre of life only when 
they are wrought out in actual experience. Spir- 
itual graces cannot be cultivated in the abstract. 
Character is more than sentiment: it is senti- 
ment incarnated, grown into life and strength 
and realitv. 



GROWING IN ONE'S PLACE. 107 

These simple illustrations show that, instead of 
being hindrances to the development of our Chris- 
tian life and character, our relative duties are in 
the largest measure helpful. To tear ourselves out 
of our place among men in order to get rid of 
these duties is to leave whole fields of our nature 
uncultivated and many of the richest possibilities 
of our regenerated life undeveloped. The common 
duties that the daily round brings to our hand, al- 
though they may seem to be far from spiritual in 
their influence, and may seem to draw us off from 
communion with God by keeping us absorbed in 
and occupied with earthly tasks, are to us really 
not hindrances, but rich means of grace. We 
grow best Godward when we are serving best 
manward in Christ's name and for his sake. 

Therefore, in the cultivation of the Christian 
life, we can do nothing better than attend with 
fidelity and diligence to the duties that belong to 
us in our varied relations. Wherever we find 
ourselves when we start as disciples, we should at 
once begin to meet the requirements of our place. 
The head of a family should take up promptly, 
as the first biddings of his new Master, his duties 
as a husband and as a father, performing them 



108 IN HIS STEPS. 

with new faithfulness and tenderness and with the 
new motive in his heart of love to Christ. On be- 
coming a Christian a child in the parents' home 
should accept as the heavenly "Father's busi- 
ness" for him at present his duties of obedience 
and honor to his earthly father and mother. And 
it should be a wonderful inspiration, if the home- 
limits seem too narrow for the aspirations of youth, 
to remember that for thirty years Jesus found scope 
enough, without chafing or discontent or the dwarf- 
ing of his powers, for his blessed divine-human life, 
in doing a child's simple part in a peasant-home. 
The will of God for brothers and sisters beginning 
to follow Christ is to render to one another all the 
sweet and helpful service of patient, unselfish love 
that belongs to their sacred relationship. 

We are called to walk with God, but not ordi- 
narily by withdrawing from among men. We 
are to walk with God in the place to which he 
has assigned us. We are called to be holy, but 
holiness is not some vague, nebulous thing, some 
abstract condition of soul attained apart from com- 
mon practical life. Holiness is obedience to duty, 
and no one can be holy and neglect the service to 
his fellow-men which his relationships impose 



GROWING IN ONE'S PLACE. 109 

upon him. God plants the trees in his orchards, 
and he knows where each will grow the best 
— in the quiet valley or on the bleak mountain ; 
and where he has planted them they should 
grow in quiet contentment. 



X. 

PREPARATION FOR TRIAL: FORECAST. 

nnRIAL lies somewhere in every one's path. To 
the young it may seem far off, and even think- 
ing of it may be unwelcome. " Why should we 
stain the blue of our skies," they ask, "with 
anticipations of trouble that may not come for 
years?" We are specially commanded by our 
Lord himself not to take anxious thought for 
any to-morrow. The true rule of a life of trust 
is to live by the day. 

"Make a little fence of trust 

Around to-day; 
Fill the space with loving works, 

And therein stay; 
Look not through the sheltering bars 

Upon to-morrow: 
God will help thee bear what comes, 

If joy or sorrow." 

Yet there is a sense in which even in their hap- 
piest days the young should anticipate trial. The 
no 



PREPARATION FOR TRIAL. Ill 

man whose garners have been filled from this 
year's golden harvest should not be anxious about 
next year's bread, but he must forecast his wants by 
sowing in time to have another harvest. We need 
not sadden our days of joy by anticipations of 
future sorrow, but we ought, even in our sun- 
niest hours, to be preparing for the times of gloom, 
so as to be in readiness for them when they come. 
We ought in our plenty-years to store away pro- 
vision to feed upon in the famine-years that will 
follow. We ought in the glad springtime, amid 
plenty, to sow the seeds whose fruit we shall need 
in the dreary autumn. In the pleasant summer 
days, when we have no need for fuel, we ought to 
gather the wood which by and by we shall want 
for our winter fires. 

The attendants went through the train at mid- 
day and lighted the lamps in the cars. It seemed 
a strange and quite useless thing to do, and many 
facetious remarks regarding it were made by the 
passengers. But soon the train rushed into a 
long, dark tunnel, and then the lighting of the 
lamps appeared no longer either a strange or a 
useless thing ; nor was their pale light despised. 
It may seem idle and unnecessary now to the 



112 IN HIS STEPS. 

young and joyous to hang up lamps of comfort in 
their hearts, while the sun of earthly blessing 
shines brightly upon them and while their path 
lies amid the flowers and through smiling valleys ; 
but there are dark places farther on, unseen as yet 
— unsuspected even — into which they may plunge 
suddenly without time or opportunity to find the 
lamps of comfort and light them, and in which 
they will be left in utter darkness if they have 
made no provision in advance. But if, while 
they moved along in the brightness, they have 
wisely prepared for the dark passage, then the 
lamps will pour their grateful light about them 
and cheer the gloom. 

There is a wide difference between being anxious 
about coming troubles and being prepared before- 
hand for troubles that may come. The former is 
a sin ; the latter is a duty. Those only can truly 
live in quiet peace without anxiety who have already 
made preparation for anything that may come to 
them. No one can find real pleasure on the sea in 
the calmest weather who is not confident that the 
ship on which he rides is built and rigged for the 
fiercest tempest that may arise. No one can enjoy 
life in the fullest measure who is not prepared for 



PEEPAEATION FOR TRIAL. 113 

death. And no one can get the best out of joy 
and gladness who has not made provision for 
sorrow. 

What preparation can we make in advance for 
trial ? For one thing, there are certain great foun- 
dation-truths which, if firmly laid in our minds, 
will prove strong sources of comfort in any trial 
that may come. One is the Christian doctrine of 
providence. Take it, for example, as it is stated 
in our Shorter Catechism : " God's works of provi- 
dence are, his most holy, wise and powerful pre- 
serving and governing all his creatures and all 
their actions." There is no chance in this uni- 
verse ; there are no accidents. God's govern- 
ment extends to "all his creatures and all their 
actions." 

" Know well, my soul, God's hand controls 

Whate'er thou fearest; 
Kound him in calmest music rolls 

Whate'er thou hearest. 
What to thee is shadow to him is day, 

And the end he knoweth, 
And not on a blind and aimless way 

The spirit goeth." 

Then He who governs all is not mere power : he 
is our Father with infinite love for us. He ^thinks 



114 IN HIS STEPS. 

for us and plans for us. So personal and minute 
is his care that amid all the vast and complicated 
affairs of the universe not one of us is overlooked 
or forgotten, nor are the smallest interests of the 
least and humblest of us allowed to suffer. We 
are each so sheltered that no arrow that flieth 
by day nor pestilence that walketh in darkness 
can touch us. If we are God's true children, we 
know that whatever trouble comes to us comes as 
the Father's will. We know also that since it is 
the Father's will it must be the best thing for us. 
His unerring wisdom assures us that no mistake 
has been made in mixing the cup for us, while 
his infinite love is pledge that he seeks only our 
highest good. 

The firm fixing in our minds of this great truth 
prepares us to receive without doubt or alarm what- 
ever God may send, and sweetly and trustfully to 
submit to his will. 

Preparation may also be made in times of joy and 
gladness for the days of trial by filling our hearts 
with the truths of the Holy Scriptures. The wise 
virgins were not left in darkness when their lamps 
had burned out, because they had a reserve of oil 
in their vessels. If we have a store of divine 



PREPARATION FOR TRIAL, 115 

promises and consolations hidden in our hearts 
during the sunny days, we shall never be left 
in darkness, however suddenly the shadow may 
fall upon us. Words of Scripture in which 
we have never before seen any special comfort 
will then shine out with bright lustre, like stars 
when the sun has gone down, pouring heavenly 
light into our souls. God will then speak to us 
in his own words, and we shall hear his voice of 
love and be cheered and strengthened by the assur- 
ances he gives. We shall find among the treasured 
comforts the very help we need — a staff to support 
us in the rough path, a lamp to lighten the bit of 
dark road, an arm to lean upon if we are weak and 
faint, a hand to guide if we do not know where to 
go, a word of hope if we are cast down, a bosom 
to rest upon if we are weary and crushed, a balm 
of healing if our hearts are wounded or broken. 
There is consolation in the Bible for every possi- 
ble experience of sorrow; and if we but have 
the divine words laid up in our hearts, we shall 
find them as we need them, and they will sweeten 
our Marahs for us. They will come to our help 
at the right moment, and will prove God's very 
angels to us with their light and their help. 



116 IN HIS STEPS. 

"When the sun withdraws his light, 
Lo ! the stars of God are there ; 
Present hosts unseen till night — 
Matchless, countless, silent, fair. 

"Children, oft when joy shines clear 
Lost is hold of hope divine; 
Then the night of grief draws near, 
And God's countless comforts shine." 

The same is true of preparation for meeting temp- 
tation. This is best made by storing the heart 
with the commands and promises of God's word, 
which may be brought out in the hour of need 
and made available for defence. When our Lord 
was tempted, he made use of the words of divine 
truth in resisting the tempter. If we would meet 
and overcome temptations, we must follow the 
example of our Master. But to do this we must 
have the Scripture words hidden in our hearts, 
ready for use in any moment of need or danger. 
Our Lord did not open his parchment roll at 
that moment and read the divine sentences which 
drove the tempter away. He had pondered the 
holy book in the quiet days before the enemy 
came, and had its words stored in his heart, ready 
for instant use when the hour of need came. 



PREPARATION FOR TRIAL. 117 

In Holman Hunt's picture " The Shadow of 
Death," which represents this Saviour as a young 
man in the carpenter's shop stretching himself at 
the close of a weary day, and with his outspread 
arms making the shadow of a cross on the wall, 
there is a minor feature that is full of suggestion. 
On a shelf is a collection of books in the form 
of rolls, such as were in use in those days. They 
represent the Saviour's library — the books of the 
Holy Scripture. They are there in the shop where 
he worked, intimating that in his leisure-moments 
he turned to them to ponder their great truths and 
store away their principles in his memory and in his 
heart. No doubt the picture truly represents the 
daily habit of his life in those quiet years when 
he was preparing for his great public work. Thus 
it was that when the tempter came there was no 
need for feverish haste in preparing for defence. 
The weapons were ready, and the victory was easy. 

From the Saviour's example we should learn to 
prepare in advance for temptation by filling our 
hearts in the days of youth and early life with 
the truths of God's word. When the tempter 
comes, there will be no time to search out texts 
with which to ward off his blows ; but if we have 



118 IN HIS STEPS. 

the sacred words treasured in our hearts, it will 
be easy to draw them forth, as arrows from a 
quiver, for use at any moment of danger. 

It need scarcely be said that another preparation 
for trial is a close walk with God in the days when 
the trial is yet in the future. Nothing adds more 
to the bitterness of any grief than the memory of a 
careless or a sinful life, while nothing alleviates the 
pain of affliction so much as the remembrance of 
faithfulness in duty and the consciousness of divine 
approval. If our habitual daily life has been 
near to God, we have no trouble in finding him 
when in some sore stress we greatly need him ; but 
if we have been living far from God in the bright 
days, neglecting our devotions and our duties, it 
takes a long time, when trial conies, to get near 
enough to him to receive the tender personal com- 
forts which he imparts to those who in intimate 
friendship lean upon his breast. 

Our habitual treatment of our friends in the sea- 
son of unbroken fellowship has very much to do 
with the comfort we shall get when we are called 
to mourn the loss of those friends. If we have 
been unkind or selfish or thoughtless or harsh ; if 
we have failed in any duty to them ; if we have 



PREPARATION FOR TRIAL. 119 

caused them pain or trouble ; if we have wronged 
or injured them in any way, — no fullness and rich- 
ness of divine comfort will altogether take away 
the pang from our heart when we stand by the 
cold clay and it is too late to ask or to receive for- 
giveness. But if we have been faithful and true 
to our friends in all ways; if we have been 
thoughtful and kind; if we have let our love 
flow out in fond expression and unselfish ministry, 
— when they leave us our sorrow at the loss may 
be no less sore, but it will have no bitterness in it. 
Loyal and tender friendship is a preparation for 
sorrow; its memory, a sweetener of bereavement. 
To all of us sorrow will come in some form or 
other. But we may so lay up in store the resources 
of comfort that in whatever way it may come to us, 
in whatever measure or however suddenly, we may 
not be crushed by it, but may welcome it as God's 
angel and receive the message our Father sends to 
us in it, and the benediction it brings to us from 
heaven. 

"Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 
God's messenger sent down to thee. 

Do thou 
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow, 



120 IN HIS STEPS. 

And ere his shadow cross thy threshold crave 
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave. 

Allow 
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, 
Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave 
Of mortal tumult to obliterate 
The soul's Marmoreal calmness. Grief should be, 
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate, 
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free, 
Strong to consume small troubles — to commend 
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end." 

In God's plan for each life one step is always 
designed to prepare for the next. One day's faith- 
fulness lifts up to the next day's duty and fits for 
the next day's trial. Faithfulness — simple faith- 
fulness — each hour, each moment, is all that is 
necessary to prepare for any future. Then, at the 
end, such a life will stand approved and complete, 
ready for the crowning, at the feet of Him who 
is Redeemer, Lord, Pattern, Helper and Friend. 



THE END. 



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